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SARAJEVO 2022 CineLink Industry Days

Thanasis Neofotistos • Director de The Boy With the Light-blue Eyes

"Creo que la definición de 'fábula moderna' que el jurado hizo de la película es muy pertinente y descriptiva para lo que queremos crear"

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- Hemos hablado con el ganador del Premio al Desarrollo de la Coproducción de Eurimages de este año en los CineLink Industry Days de Sarajevo sobre su nuevo proyecto, que parece fascinante

Thanasis Neofotistos • Director de The Boy With the Light-blue Eyes
i-d (delante): Thanasis Neofotistos y el coguionista Grigoris Skarakis

Este artículo está disponible en inglés.

A week after winning the Eurimages Co-production Development Award (worth €20,000) at Sarajevo’s CineLink Industry Days (see the news), we caught up with Thanasis Neofotistos in order for him to talk us through his new project The Boy With the Light-blue Eyes. His latest short, Airhostes-737, just premiered at this month’s Locarno Film Festival, whilst his previous one, Patison Avenue, was shown at Venice, before winning three awards at Clermont-Ferrand.

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Cineuropa: Could you introduce your project The Boy With the Light-blue Eyes to us? What is the story, and what has inspired you to make it as your debut feature?
Thanasis Neofotistos:
The Boy With the Light-blue Eyes is the story of Peter, a boy who lives in a very superstitious mountain village in Greece. It’s kind of an archaic society, afraid of everything different, but most of all, afraid of people with blue eyes – they consider them dangerous, and capable of bringing the worst curse upon the village. Peter is unfortunate enough to have been born with blue eyes, but until he reached puberty, his mother had managed to hide it, using a piece of cloth around his head at all times, claiming a serious photosensitivity condition. Then comes puberty, and through his relationship with his best friend, Peter will learn the whole truth about himself and will have to make some difficult decisions. Of course, it is a story about diversity, self-discovery and acceptance, and my main inspiration has been the struggles I have had personally, coming out in quite a conservative society and family in Greece, and the sacrifice I had to make in order to be true to myself and to who I was. As you can imagine, this would have been extremely difficult at Peter’s age, when the people around me, and my family in particular, maybe knew more about who I was than I did.

How are you planning to use the Eurimages award?
Although I am not the most appropriate person to answer this question (my producer is), I could say that, as we are at a very critical point in our funding process, this money is extremely helpful as it will allow us to do things in development the way they should be done. I think the next step will be casting, mainly for the two 16-year-old characters, and also the very important location scouting. Fingers crossed!

Are you planning to apply for any other funding opportunities?
I totally trust my wonderful producer and friend, Ioanna Bolomyti, for the funding strategy, and I am grateful to have someone who enjoys doing this difficult part of our movie!

How was your experience in Sarajevo, participating in the CineLink Co-production market? Did you receive any particular feedback that altered your strategy for the project?
For me, Sarajevo, after having participated so many times, feels like family. CineLink was a great experience, at the exact point I needed it. Script-wise, it helped us, critically, to form a final version of the script with which we are completely satisfied.

Industry-wise, we met many interesting people (co-producers and sales agents), and I am sure we will collaborate with some of them and they will contribute their knowledge and expertise to our strategy. Finally, artistically speaking, CineLink boosted our excitement for a project we have been working on for many years. I will hold on to the description of The Boy With The Light-blue Eyes as a “modern fable”, according to the jury of the Eurimages Award, which I found very insightful and descriptive of what we aspire to create.

Is the film intended to have a broad appeal for teenage audiences? That is, those of around the same age as your lead character, Peter?
My goal is to create a universal, artistically significant film. It is not designed, especially, to appeal to a teenage audience. I strongly believe that it will, though, because in a genuine way, our movie will try to broach that period of someone’s life when everything goes from fluid and unstable to a steady sense of one’s self, and from a period when other people’s reflections matter more to a time when cultivating self-reflection is critical. I think teenagers, and all of us who have lived through such an age, will identify with Peter and his struggles.

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