‘Children Of The Sun’ review: Four German youngsters attempt to create a sexual utopia in poetic, puzzling Greece-set drama

Dir/scr: Leonie Krippendorff. Germany/Greece. 2026. 119mins

Youthful ideals and hard-headed reality clash under the hot sun in this unhurried and sexually frank Greece-set drama from German writer-director Leonie Krippendorff. Four young German twentysomethings, one of them the nephew of a local Greek villager, arrive in a remote mountainous community ready to pitch their tent far from humanity. Here, lazing by rock pools and gazing at one another’s bodies, they shed clothes and inhibitions, and seek out an alternative way of living and loving. But brewing resentments and unforeseen events – as well as more sinister infringements – challenge their new-found corner of utopia.

More demanding viewers might be frustrated by some loose storytelling and a vague approach

There’s something pleasingly unforced and matter-of-fact about how Children Of The Sun, which launches in Hamburg, portrays polyamory and unconventional ways of living. Writer-director Krippendorff previously worked with the film’s two lead actresses, Lena Urzendowsky and Jella Haase, on her debut feature, Cocoon (2020), which explored the love between two teen girls and opened Berlin’s Generation 14+ strand, with Peccadillo Pictures releasing the film in the UK.  There are also queer themes in Children Of The Sun, but the main focus is on radical lifestyle choices and the primary relationships are between men and women.

Further festival plays should follow and generous audiences should appreciate the film’s eye for sexual ambiguity and the open-ended questions it poses about how best to live in a connected, troubled world. More demanding viewers might be frustrated by some loose storytelling and a vague approach to the details of romantic relationships and wider power dynamics.

Two couples arrive in Greece, excited for an adventure: Zora (Haase) declares to the uncle of her boyfriend Alex (Andronikos Korakas) that they have been together for four months: “The longest relationship I’ve ever had”. Meanwhile, Klara (Urzendowsky) and Junis (Joshua Hupfauer) appear the model of stability: they have been together for five years. The smashed watermelon on the street suggests we might be in for an upheaval. Indeed, the symbolism is not always subtle. There are also occasional interludes showing still-life paintings of fruit and oysters, with accompanying voiceovers talking of ancient Greek Gods including Gaia and Poseidon. The effect is dreamy – a bold nod to the elemental – but puzzling.

It’s not long before Zora is masturbating loudly while most of the others somehow sleep (or at least pretend to sleep) in the same tent, or putting her fingers between her legs and then in Junis’s mouth when the others leave the tent to make coffee. Later in the film, she will dab a drop of menstrual blood on Junis’s tongue. Zora is the most free of the free spirits; she’s the one driving forward experimentation, which means partners are swapped and boundaries blurred. Klara is initially wounded but comes round; Junis and Alex adapt tentatively.

The strongest scenes in Children Of The Sun, which is mainly in German with some English and Greek dialogue, avoid talk and focus instead on looks and touches: visual moments that speak to these shifting relationships. (Shout out to intimacy co-ordinator Kasia Szustow who gets a prominent credit; nudity and sex are ingrained in the story.) Lotta Killian’s attractive cinematography laps up the landscapes, rocks, water and sun, and the electronic and vocal score is appropriately ethereal.

What’s less successful is the storyline that emerges linking encroaching forest fires with the presence of wind turbines, cobalt mines, a UK-based energy company and a sleazy Danish businessman (Thure Lindhardt). The point seems to be that you can never really escape the problems of the modern world, and to do so might even be shirking your responsibility as a good citizen. But this nod to a more conventional thriller sits uneasily with, and dilutes, the film’s more winning poetic side.