Stavros Markoulakis
2026
Greece, France, The Netherlands
English, Greek, French
fiction
drama | coming of age | lgbtqia+ | queer | romance
19 minutes
Atalante Productions, Les Films de Juillet, Nami Films
On the verge of leaving his village in Crete for mandatory military service, eighteen-year-old Yorgos encounters a young man who awakens a forbidden desire. During the final days of summer, beneath the scorching sun, the future mapped out for him unravels as his dreams give birth to a new skin.
Yorgos | Dimitris Lagoutis
Jules | Amaury Foucher
Katerina | Anastasia Galerou Vlassi
Sifis | Kostas Veggos
Anna | Christina Mathioudaki
Manolis | Orfeas Makris
Sister | Rafaela Mpelenioti
Father | Yannis Koutrakis
Alexandros Aggelakis (Nantis)
Mother | Filio Mylonaki
Venice International Film Festival - Orizzonti Shorts 2026
Stavros Markoulakis is a writer, director, and curator, based between Greece and the Netherlands. His films, balancing between the real and the imaginary, explore the spectrum of love and pain, the state of belonging, as well as the human and non-human connections in our universe. They have been presented in festivals like Clermont-Ferrand, Sarajevo, Palm Springs, etc. He currently develops his debut feature “Sunbruise” and works in the Programme department of IFFR, IDFA and Leiden Shorts.
Young people can dream of freedom, but what happens when it’s denied? In the Greek countryside, tradition, patriarchy, and myth press heavily, shaping a generation forced to mutate like skin between past and future. As desires persist and identities strain, how can we survive in a world not yet redefined?
𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗜𝗖 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗚𝗘𝗖𝗞𝗢 is a true UFO.
It's a hot summer film, charged with desire, blending coming-of-age and genre cinema.
Stavros Markoulakis explores a gay masculinity trapped within performances of virility, anger and silence. He portrays a youth confronted with social determinism, whose metamorphosis seems held back –a youth growing up with the feeling that its horizon has already been drawn, dreaming of elsewhere while its future is repeatedly pulled back to the same landscapes, the same expectations, the same inheritances.
It’s a film that refuses easy answers and trusts its audience. No one at Hors du Bocal came away from watching it with the same interpretation, and that’s exactly what excites us. We love films that spark conversations and remind us that cinema is also an infinite space for interpretation.
