The Summer with Carmen

The movie-within-a-movie narrative is a popular cinematic storytelling approach, but, to my knowledge, writer-director Zacharias Mavroeidis’s 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 auteur’s latest movie project while hanging out together at a nude beach on the stunningly beautiful …

CinemaSerf

2025-07-03

⭐ 6

If you watch an heap of gay cinema, especially from South America, then this kind of story isn’t 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 doesn’t 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…