Cavafy

C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933) was a Greek poet who wrote exquisitely about his beloved cities, Alexandria and Constantinople, and about the beautiful, sexually available men who lived in them. Thanks to Lawrence Durrell’s frequent favorable mention of him in his popular novels The Alexandria Quartet, Cavafy has become a figure of considerable literary interest outside of Greek and homosexual circles. Part biography, part fantasy, but very much in the spirit of the poet’s work, this film begins in 1933 as a young literateur reads to Cavafy (Vassilis Diamandopoulos), lying abed in an Alexandrian hospital. Cavafy drifts away into memories from his life and the film takes up his story from childhood.

• Greece