24/08/2026 - The director’s third feature follows a Sudanese student at a rural Greek university who finds himself at the centre of an investigation after surviving a mysterious accident

Greek filmmaker Christos Massalas is set to start shooting his third feature, currently titled Investigation of a Boy in Love (working title), in September. Filming will take place in the Epirus region, in northwestern Greece.

The film tells the story of Amar, a Sudanese student at a rural Greek university who finds himself at the centre of an investigation after he survives a mysterious accident.

The lead role will be played by 23-year-old newcomer Housam. The cast also includes Elsa Lekakou (Kyuka - Before Summer's End, Holy Emy), Nikos Manolas, Stelios Ladopoulos, Christos Passalis (Dogtooth, Hold Onto Me, The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea), Elena Kallinikou (The Lion at My Back), Maria Zorba (The Enemy Within), and veteran stage and screen actress Aimilia Ypsilanti, amongst others.

Massalas, who will be directing from his own screenplay, commented: “Writing Investigation of a Boy in Love, I realised that the more fearlessly personal I get, the more political the story becomes. I have been wanting to tell this story for ages, but I felt like I needed a certain level of maturity – as a person and as a filmmaker – to really do it justice.”

Following a decade in London, where he studied filmmaking, Massalas returned to Greece during the financial crisis and made a series of short films, culminating in Copa-Loca (2017), which premiered in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and screened at hundreds of festivals worldwide, earning many accolades in the process, including a Hellenic Academy Award and a European Film Awards nomination.

His debut feature, Broadway, premiered at IFFR and went on to receive a host of prizes around the world, finding distribution in various countries, including France and the USA. Two years ago, Massalas made the microbudget feature Killerwood, a behind-the-scenes satire on Greek cinema that premiered at Thessaloniki.

For Investigation of a Boy in Love, Massalas is reuniting with several previous collaborators, including DoP Dimitris Lambridis, production designer Rectifier and costume designer Marli Aliferi.

Investigation of a Boy in Love is a Greek-Cypriot co-production staged by Massalas’s own Copa-Loca Films and co-produced by Nicosia-based company Seahorse Film Productions. The movie is supported by the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center (EKKOMED) and the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture, with additional support from the Epirus Film Office.