A darkish and genre-bending folktale set in a distant Greek mountain village, which additionally tells a queer coming-of-age story, is ready to world premiere in London on Thursday, June 4. The Boy With the Mild-Blue Eyes, the function directorial debut of Greek filmmaker Thanasis Neofotistos, which is tinged with fantasy and horror components, will take the highlight on the ultimate evening of the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026.
The logline for the movie, starring Giorgos Karydis, Pablo Soto, Syrmo Keke and Sofia Filippidou, hints on the thriller 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 identify is Petros (Karydis) should conceal behind a masks per his strict grandmother, who’s the mayor, and his overprotective mom. The one gentle on the finish of the tunnel for him is his bond along with his pal Aemon. Because the village believes he’s cursed, “fear turns into violence, and Petros is forced to choose between submission and sacrifice,” the press notes for the film trace.
The movie has had an extended journey over the previous decade via First Issues First, an academy for younger filmmakers from Southeastern Europe supported by the Goethe Institute, script growth on the Mediterranean Movie Institute and the Sarajevo Script Station and finally participation within 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 assertion. “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, whereas Djordje Arambasic served because the cinematographer and Panagiotis Angelopoulos because the editor. Gersh is dealing with U.S. gross sales.
However to get an actual sense for the atmospheric and poetic movie, it’s a must to watch an unique clip for The Boy With the Mild-Blue Eyes, which THR can solely premiere. Open your eyes for a primary glimpse of a cinematic allegory for othering and exclusion. And put together for a chant about good and evil that defines the village individuals’s identification.
