The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, the genre-bending Greek feature debut of writer-director Thanasis Neofotistos, is not set in a specified time.

But the director and creative team serve up visual references to the recent past. Audiences will even notice tribute to a certain group of extinct reptiles that inspired the filmmaker who will world premiere the movie as part of the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026 on Thursday, June 4.

The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes is a cinematic allegory for exclusion and the desire for love and freedom, which can also be viewed as a queer coming-of-age story.

It stars Giorgos Karydis as Petros, a boy forced by his strict grandmother, and the village mayor, to hide behind a mask because he has blue eyes. That eye color is source of fear and superstition for the locals of the remote mountain village where they live.

Neofotistos shared: “My biggest role model, my inspiration, is what I call ‘good old-school cinema,’ for example, Jurassic Park by Spielberg.

“That was the first film I ever saw in the cinema, and I got fascinated with dinosaurs because of it. I felt that dinosaurs really existed in real life when I was less than 10 years old. This was my main inspiration to be a filmmaker.”

The director of The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes was impressed by the craft of Spielberg dino blockbuster. “He used animatronics, he used materials that they handmade, handcrafted,” the Greek helmer noted. “It was not VFX, or AI now. It felt so real. The story felt so unique, and I got into this universe. That’s why I wanted to be a storyteller.”

The craft aspects were also a focus for Neofotistos and his team: “I really love to create universes. My goal was to create something unique and handcrafted. We didn’t use any AI. We used minimal VFX. Everything was made in the shooting process.”

“Look for the extinct reptiles when you watch The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes! Shared Neofotistos: “There are dinosaurs in Petros’ room, because of my inspiration by Jurassic Park.”