The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes | Thanasis Neofotistos

Image: https://i.postimg.cc/WbHv2Y0X/IMG-4504.webp ---Quote--- Greek director Thanasis Neofotistos on 'The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes,' his SXSW London debut — a folk horror allegory about otherness, queer identity and the randomness of being born different. In the remote mountain village at the center of Thanasis Neofotistos’ moody debut feature, the superstitious locals have a chant: “Nay Evil, yay Good!” It’s a ritual meant to ward off strangers — and in The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes the stranger in question is a boy whose unusually blue eyes mark him as a threat to everything the village holds sacred. The genre-bending Greek film, which can also be read as a queer coming-of-age story, world premieres in the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026 on Thursday, June 4. Starring Giorgos Karydis as Petros — a boy forced by his strict grandmother and the village mayor to hide behind a mask — the film is written by Neofotistos and Grigoris Skarakis, shot by Djordje Arambasic, and edited by Panagiotis Angelopoulos. Gersh is handling U.S. sales. A cinematic allegory for exclusion, the longing to be seen and the desire for love and freedom, The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes uses a symbolic, myth-grounded visual language to tell a story that is rooted in a specific place but unmistakably universal. Neofotistos spoke with THR about the personal experiences behind the film, its 12-year journey to the screen and why the evil eye is more than just a tourist trinket. *What can you share about the inspiration for the film and its journey?* I’ve been working on this project for almost 12 years. It started back in 2015 as an idea, and it all began because I grew up in one of those places [you see in the film] in Epirus on the border to Albania. The mountains in Greece are totally different from what everybody knows about the islands. So I grew up there. My grandmother was from a very small village with 10 families or something like that. She’s dead now, unfortunately, but she used to be very superstitious. She believed very much in those things like the evil eye, which we call ‘kako mati.’ Linky (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/the-boy-with-the-light-blue-eyes-film-director-interview-1236609561/) ---End Quote---