Mavro Livadi (Black Field) is set in 1654, when Greece was under Ottoman Empire occupation. A Janissary (a warrior of Greek origin recruited by force at a small age from his Christian family to serve at the Turkish army) arrives heavily wounded at a remote Christian female monastery. He is nursed by Anthi, a young Greek nun who has taken an oath of silence. They fall in love against all odds. But Anthi is tormented by a dark secret, soon to be revealed: she is, in fact, a boy who grew up as a girl hidden in the monastery, in order to avoid being captured and becoming a Janissary.

The two lovers escape to the nearby forest, in search of freedom from society’s constraints and lose themselves in a dreamlike reality until...