The Summer with Carmen

The movie-within-a-movie narrative is a popular cinematic storytelling approach, but, to my knowledge, writer-director Zacharias Mavroeidiss fourth feature outing is the first film to make use of it in the LGBTQ+ genre. This endearing gay comedy-drama tells the story of two long-time best friends, Demosthenes (Yorgos Tsiantoulas), a former actor-turned civil servant, and Nikitas (Andreas Labropoulos), a former actor-turned aspiring filmmaker, who try to come up with a concept for the would-be auteurs latest movie project while hanging out together at a nude beach on the stunningly beautiful Greek seacoast. They toss around a variety of ideas, but they get the most traction out of a story and script based on the waning days of Demoss relatio...

If you watch an heap of gay cinema, especially from South America, then this kind of story isnt really that novel. There are plenty where hunky heroes like Demos (Yorgos Tsiantoilas) has a best mate Nikitas (Andreas Labropoulos)  - who is obviously quite keen on his pal who doesnt really reciprocate in the way he wants, and who takes advantage of the local nudist beach and fairly vibrant gay community to get naked for much of the film and get down to some furious jogging with Thymios (Vasilis Tsigristaris) whilst on the rebound from a four year relationship with Panos (Nikolaos Mihas) with whom he looks after their dog Carmen. Still with me? Well what now ensues is a rather predicable plot wrapped within the concept that the first two chara...