Greeks Under the Influence
CINEMA QUEER FESTIVAL, STOCKHOLM
curated by Konstantinos Menelaou (The Queer Archive)
This film program is a curious exploration of Greek queer cinema, tracing the evolution of LGBTQ+ representation from the 1970s to the present. The curated selection highlights 6 short films that have challenged societal norms, offering nuanced portrayals of queer identity, love, and resistance. Through a mix of classic works and contemporary voices, the program reflects Greece’s shifting cultural landscape and the diverse experiences of its LGBTQ+ community. Audiences will witness the courageous artistry that has shaped Greek queer cinema, celebrating its role in both national and global dialogues on identity, acceptance, and human rights.
BETTY
Dimitris Stavrakas / 1979 / Greece / 33 min / English subtitles
Betty is a short film that narrates the day in the life of an Athenian transvestite. Through memories from his former life and images from his current one, as the day draws to a close, past and present intersect. But both are dominated by an overarching emotion: the ineluctable loneliness of the person.
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US AND THE SKY
Vasilis Kekatos / 2019 / Greece / 9 min / English subtitles
Two strangers meet for the first time at an old gas station. One has stopped to gas up his bike, while the other is just stranded. Lacking money to get home, he will try to sell him the distance that separates them from the sky.
LISA AND THE OTHER ONE
Takis Spetsiotis / 1976 / Greece / 8 mins / English subtitles
Close-ups and medium fixed camera shots of a man dressed in Liza Minelli’ clothes, who mimes to a recording of the music hall song “Life is a Cabaret”. In the soundtrack, the iconical reading of a text exposing the ideological clichés of a family soap opera in a state of crisis. “My little boy, alas, is gay…”.
PINK
Memi Koupa / 2017 / Greece / 13 min / English subtitles
The empty streets of Athens on a Monday evening. A girl returns home from work. A pair of stuffed animals left on a dumpster. An omen? Out of nowhere, a casual encounter with a homeless girl leads to an unusual invitation. A goldfish shows the way to freedom. Who is the savior and who wants to be saved?
TEDDY BEAR
Konstantinos Menelaou / 2022 / Greece / 3 min / English subtitles
A man returns home to Athens, where he spends solitary days in his new flat. As he navigates his loneliness, his voice reveals heartfelt messages to the lover he left behind, capturing the bittersweet emotions of love, distance, and the struggle to move on.
POST RESTANT OMONIA
Haris Papadopoulos / 1982 / Greece / 13 mins
A mixture of fact and fiction about the nightlife in Omonia Square and vicinity. Moving faces and events that happen in the square were set up and filmed with the real characters who haunt the area and who agreed to re-enact what they live through each night. Finally, true confessions of the people of Omonia, taken from their personal nocturnal experiences, comprise a connecting off-screen link with the various incidents which occur in the square.
TENDER
Christos Dimas / 1997 / Greece / 13 mins
Greek drag queen hustler shares her perspectives on life and love.