In Lesvia, director Tzeli Hadjidimitriou‘s poignant 2024 documentary, we’re transported to Skala Eressos, a small beach town on the island of Lesbos, Greece, where queer women have found connection, freedom, and a sense of belonging since the 1970s. Lesvos, famously home to Sappho, the OG woman-loving-woman poet from over 2,600 years ago, is where we get the words lesbian and sapphic. So initially drawn by Sappho’s legacy, women worldwide flocked to this beach town and created something entirely new—a sapphic enclave like nowhere else.
This 78-minute film, a 13-year labor of love, beautifully weaves together historical context, Tzeli’s personal essays, archival footage, and heartfelt interviews with both Greek locals and the women who made Skala Eressos their sanctuary.
The cinematography? Absolutely stunning. Tzeli’s long shots of the rocky coastline and sun-drenched trees mirror the serenity that so many of these women describe when speaking about their experiences on the island. The camera captures the natural landscape with a reverence that underscores how vital this place is to its inhabitants and visitors alike. Nature, in many ways, becomes a co-conspirator in this quiet revolution, providing cover for women to explore their bodies and their desires.
A lesbian diaspora of women came together from different countries, forming a sisterhood they hadn’t experienced back home. For many, this was their first taste of lesbian community, a place where conversations about feminism, sexuality, art, and politics were part of the daily rhythm. The beach became a literal and metaphorical safe space where, for the first time, women could explore what it meant to love and be loved by other women without fear.
But Lesvia isn’t just about idyllic summers spent swimming naked in the Aegean Sea. The film dives into the complex social dynamics at play between the locals and the growing lesbian community.
And it also doesn’t shy away from the difficult truths of creating such a utopia. Conflict arose not only from the locals but within the community itself, naturally. It’s a reminder that for future generations who want to build queer sanctuaries, like with all human communities, even within designated safe spaces, there are social challenges to navigate. For instance, some men would come to the beach to ogle the women (akin to straight men visiting lesbian bars today), and some locals accused the lesbians of disrespectful behavior in the village’s shared spaces like the main square while not holding straight bars as accountable.
As a born and raised Greek from the island of Lesbos, Tzeli handles this sensitive history with nuance and grace, acknowledging the locals’ valid fear of displacement while sharing her own queer journey from childhood and celebrating the freedom and solidarity that lesbians found in Skala Eressos.
The documentary also touches on the very timely discussion of gentrification of Eressos, which mirrors the fate of many queer neighborhoods around the world.
The film wraps up with recent decades from the 1990s to 2010s. Including moments of flourishing and decline. From women-only hotels opening to lesbian-owned businesses closing. However, there is a glimmer of hope, a new generation of women who have rediscovered Eressos. Today, festivals and female-owned businesses are sprouting up again.
Lesvia left me wondering: What is Skala Eressos like right now? Can I still visit and find some of that magic, or has the golden era faded? Are there any women-only spaces there today? We see some Gen Z and Millenials being interviewed, but is it now a straight space with a few lesbians here and there? Maybe this omission was due to when it was filmed, pandemic restrictions, and/or intentional to protect the space from the exoticism and commercialization that could come from gaining too much attention, especially from the wrong crowd.
Overall, as a queer millennial watching Lesvia, it’s impossible not to feel a sense of awe at the bravery of these women who came before me. They defied societal expectations at a time when lesbian visibility was so dangerous. They were revolutionaries who paved the way for you and me today!
This documentary will serve as an invaluable resource for sapphic history, a history that has been swept under the rug and forced into the shadows for millennia.
A big thank you to the director for putting this together for us today and the future generations of sapphics. Our generation owes our current queer freedoms to her generation.
Tzeli Hadjidimitriou’s dedication to this documentary has rightfully garnered significant praise, winning awards like Best Documentary at the ZKB Audience Award (2024) and Best Documentary Film at Zinegoak (2024).
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