Christos Tolis is a cinematographer and musician based in Athens, where he was born and raised. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and later earned a Master’s degree in Shipping from the University of Piraeus.
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Since 2010, he has worked professionally in photography, later expanding his practice into filmmaking and colour grading. His documentary work includes collaborations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 2021), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC, 2018), WWF (2019), and the BBC (2023), among others. As a photographer, he collaborated for many years with LiFO magazine and has presented a number of solo exhibitions, including A Game of Power, a body of work documenting the landscape of the lignite mines of Western Macedonia..
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Alongside his film and photographic practice, he has contributed to artistic productions as a technical director and lighting designer. In 2020, he directed his first short film, Rhea in August, which was screened in Split as part of the Dalmatia Film Festival. In 2023, the documentary A Voice in the Night, co-created with Olga Laskaratos, was selected for the official programme of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and received the Cosmocinema Award at the London Greek Film Festival. In 2024, he served as Director of Photography on Meletis Moiras’s documentary Latreia, which was screened at AIFF. This year, in a new collaboration with Olga Laskaratos, he completed the documentary Andreas Laskaratos and the Mysteries of Kefalonia. Also in 2023, he directed the interdisciplinary performance Legend of Kopakonan for the 5th Zadar Organ Festival in Croatia, where he also oversaw the sound design and projection mapping..
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His artistic interests extend to interaction design and interactive installations. Since 2013, he has led Sub.Urban Images and Soundscapes.