‘Tilos Weddings’ Offers Nostalgic Look at ‘Heroic’ Fight for Same-Sex Marriage in Greece
variety.comChristopher Vourlias Fourteen years ago, on the far-flung and Lilliputian island of Tilos, two same-sex couples wed in a civil ceremony – the first gay and lesbian marriages ever held in Greece.
It was an event that sparked outrage from the Greek Orthodox Church and large swaths of the conservative Mediterranean nation, even as it represented a historic step forward for Greece’s marginalized queer community.The story of those civil marriages and the impact they had on the LGBTQ+ movement is the focus of “Tilos Weddings,” by director Panayotis Evangelidis, who offers a first-hand account of what he describes as a “heroic period” in the struggle for gay rights in Greece.
Written and produced by Evangelidis, the film world premiered at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. A filmmaker and activist, Evangelidis joined the fight for same-sex marriage as a member of the Gay and Lesbian Community of Greece, an organization that had been lobbying for the extension of civil marriage to couples regardless of sex since its founding in 2004.Four years later, the community found an unexpected ally in Tassos Aliferis, the outspoken mayor of the Aegean island of Tilos, who agreed to perform the first gay and lesbian civil marriages ever held in Greece.
That victory, however, raised a pressing problem. “There were so many [gay and lesbian] couples, but they would never expose themselves [publicly],” said Evangelidis.Instead, the Gay and Lesbian Community of Greece had to invent two couples who could serve as symbolic proxies.
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