Stavros Tsiolis was born in 1937 and studied cinematography in Athens. Since 1958 Tsiolis  has worked as an assistant director in 54 films, most of them in collaboration with Finos Films. He directed his first film in 1968 while in 1970 an iternational succes came with the film Abuse of Power. After that he took a fifteen years break and he came back in 1985 with many feature films. His trademark is the use of  improvised dialogues as well as casting amateur actors. In most of his movies Tsiolis has casted Argyris Bakirtzis as his leading actor.