A dark and genre-bending folktale set in a remote Greek mountain village, which also tells a queer coming-of-age story, is set to world premiere in London on Thursday, June 4. The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, the feature directorial debut of Greek filmmaker Thanasis Neofotistos, which is tinged with fantasy and horror elements, will take the spotlight on the final night of the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026.
The logline for the film, starring Giorgos Karydis, Pablo Soto, Syrmo Keke and Sofia Filippidou, hints at the mystery that awaits audiences. “Born under a curse, an unusually blue-eyed boy, longs for freedom and love in a remote mountain village ruled by superstition,” it reads.
The boy’s name is Petros (Karydis) must hide behind a mask per his strict grandmother, who is the mayor, and his overprotective mother. The one light at the end of the tunnel for him is his bond with his friend Aemon. As the village believes he is cursed, “fear turns into violence, and Petros is forced to choose between submission and sacrifice,” the press notes for the movie hint.
The film has had a long journey over the past decade through First Things First, an academy for young filmmakers from Southeastern Europe supported by the Goethe Institute, script development at the Mediterranean Film Institute and the Sarajevo Script Station and eventually participation in the Cannes Focus CoPro program in 2022.
“The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes is a dark, coming-of-age folktale that unfolds into a Greek tragedy,” Neofotistos shares in a director’s statement. “The project is born from a deeply personal, queer experience, and the fear of feeling ‘different.’ It portrays a closed, conservative society collapsing under its own beliefs and superstitions, not far from the family I grew up in.”
And he highlights: “Cinematically, the film is told through a symbolic and impressionistic language, rooted in realism and grounded in myth. Developed over a decade-long creative journey, it arrives in its most honest place; raw, handmade and human. Local in form, yet universal in essence.”
The director wrote the script with Grigoris Skarakis, while Djordje Arambasic served as the cinematographer and Panagiotis Angelopoulos as the editor. Gersh is handling U.S. sales.
But to get a real sense for the atmospheric and poetic film, you have to watch an exclusive clip for The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, which THR can exclusively premiere. Open your eyes for a first glimpse of a cinematic allegory for othering and exclusion. And prepare for a chant about good and evil that defines the village people’s identity.
