The beautiful Greek Balkan mountains are the setting for Bearcave’s queer love story, which just screened at London’s BFI Flare Film Festival. Goat farmer Argyro (Hara Kyriazi) lives a gentle, bohemian existence with her cute goats in Tirna, a small mountain village in Central Greece. Life is languid and slow-paced. She’s cool with multiple piercings, likes a smoke and dances as she performs her farming duties in her headphones. She’s in a quasi-romantic relationship with Anneta (Pamela Oikonomaki), a feisty, blonde manicurist who also lives in the village. Argyro’s admiration for Anneta isn’t, however, fully reciprocated, as Anneta is also dating a dubious local policeman. He gets her pregnant, and the two decide to go and live with his mother in a larger town. Anneta delivers this news to Argyro quite bluntly, and before Argyro has time to properly react, Anneta and her man have left the village for their new lives, leaving Argyro angry and bereft. Is there any hope for the two women’s love?

Directors Krysianna Papadakis and Stergios Dinopoulos have placed a very modern love story in the context of very traditional Greek village life. The contrast works, helped by a strong youthful chemistry between Kyriazi and Oikonomaki, spectacular mountain landscapes, and a supporting cast of real local villagers from their hometown. The tale is told very much from a woman’s perspective, and the male characters in the plot are not fleshed out – we don’t even see a full silhouette of Anneta’s boyfriend – he’s is just an occasional snoring lump in bed. This approach works well. Themes include loneliness – the loneliness of being surrounded by people you know in a small village, but who are not your tribe, compared to the loneliness of living in a large city, where your tribe exists, but where you don’t know anyone. The divergence of traditional and modern lives is expressed with a varied soundtrack comprising both beautiful traditional Greek music and contemporary club tracks.

Bearcave is spliced with nods to Greek folklore and traditions, adding to the charm. It’s been produced on a tiny budget, at a grassroots level, at times shot on a smartphone, it seems, and with a cast and crew of newcomers. Of these, Sofia Linospori shines as Anneta’s kooky mother-in-law, and their scenes together are quirky and humorous. Although at times the image quality, and in particular the lighting, could be better, these don’t detract from this sweet, intimate, unhurried tale, full of female energy.