Last month, director Vasilis Kekatos became the first Greek to win a Palm d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival.

His film ‘The Distance Between Us and the Sky’ stood out among 11 shortlisted short films from a total 4,240 films that were submitted.

To add to that impressive achievement, Kekatos’ film also won the Queer Palm for Best Short Film for its sensitive approach to desire.

The director has since revealed the win was dedicated to his father’s brother, his late uncle Spyros who was a Greek Australian.

“He was homosexual and he is the man hiding behind all of this. He was the one who influenced my attitude towards homosexuality. He was a solid rock n’ roll personality who came out at 16 during difficult times and in a poor and conservative family like mine. He left at age 17 for Australia to live on his own. My parents had a unique love for him, without his sexual identity ever being an issue. This award, I dedicate it in some ways to his memory,” he told Proto Thema.

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It was his uncle Spyros who is in large part to thank for Kekatos pursuing film, as he had instilled the belief in his nephew that whatever it is one chooses to pursue in their lives that it is not of anyone else’s concern.

“I may not have had a problem with my sexual identity [like he did], but I did with my professional identity. I was studying law in London because my parents wanted it. In my second year I told them that I couldn’t take it anymore; I was suffocating and I wanted to do something else,” he recalls.

“As classic Greek parents, before they agreed, they imposed one condition: that I graduate with a university degree. So I studied Film Directing at Brunel University in London … ”

Watch the trailer for the award-winning short film ‘The Distance Between Us and the Sky’ below.