Following a summer shoot across Nicosia, Limassol, and nearby coastal locations, Cypriot writer-director Myrsini Aristidou’s debut feature, 'Hold Onto Me' (Κράτα Με), has become the first official selection of a Cypriot feature film at the Sundance Film Festival 2026.
In what is described as a coming-of-age drama, the film centres on 11-year-old Iris (Maria Petrova), who hopes to reconnect with her estranged father, Aris (Christos Passalis), after learning that he has returned to Cyprus for his own father’s funeral. Their uneasy reunion unfolds in a decaying shipyard, where a fragile bond develops through conflict and tentative gestures. The cast also includes Jenny Sallo and Aulona Lupa, Andreas Koutsoftas, Ahilleas Grammatikopoulos, Giorgos Kyriacou, Loukas Zikos and Nicolas Grammatikopoulos. The film features cinematography by Lasse Ulvedal Tolbøll, co-editing by Jenna Mangulad, and an original score by Alex Weston.
The shipyard, meanwhile, also plays a central symbolic role in the film. As Aristidou explained in an interview with online information portal dedicated to the promotion of European Cinema Cineuropa, “The shipyard is more than just a location; it reflects the emotional neglect and abandonment that Iris feels in her relationship with her father. It’s a liminal space: forgotten by time, suspended between land and sea, much like Iris and Aris, trapped between a past they can’t escape and a future they don’t exactly know how to enter.” She adds that she had wanted to film there for years, noting, “Now the place is being erased by luxury real estate, so I felt the need to capture it before it was gone.”
Building on themes explored in her short films 'Semele' and 'Aria', Aristidou continues to examine family relationships, particularly father-daughter dynamics. As noted by the cinema website Graal Films, Aristidou sees the film as the culmination of a trilogy that began with 'Semele' and 'Aria,' each exploring the evolving emotional terrain between a father and daughter. 'Hold Onto Me' delves deeper, tracing “the quiet, often unspoken longing that forms in the absence of a father,” capturing the tentative beginnings of a relationship struggling to find space to exist, the site says. "As a Cypriot filmmaker, Aristidou sought to portray the textures of everyday life on the island: 'the worn-out backdrops, the slow movement of time, and the raw emotional undercurrents that continue to shape us. In many ways, Iris mirrors Cyprus itself: small, overlooked, marked by absence, yet quietly determined to piece things together,'" Graal Films reports.
In the interview with Cineuropa, meanwhile, Aristidou elaborates, “The island is shaped by contradictions, warmth and isolation, beauty and neglect, connection and division. Its political history, marked by invasion, displacement and a constant sense of uncertainty, mirrors the emotional landscape of the film.” While the politics remain implicit, she adds, “That quiet vulnerability is what I wanted to explore, not overtly, but as something felt beneath the surface. Because I grew up here, that complexity feels instinctive to me.”
'Hold Onto Me' was shot entirely in Cyprus with an international creative team, is a Cyprus-Greece-Denmark co-production with the participation of the United States, in co-production with the Department of Contemporary Culture of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus, and with the participation of the Danish Film Institute, the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center, Greece’s national broadcaster (ERT), and the Black Family Grant of NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
More about Myrsini Aristidou
Born and raised in Limassol, Myrsini Aristidou is a writer, director, producer, and editor.
A graduate of Pratt Institute (BFA in Film and Art History) and NYU Tisch School of the Arts (MFA in Film Directing), Aristidou’s work has been presented at major international film festivals including Venice, Berlin, Sundance, Toronto, and Tribeca.
Her short film 'Aria' (2017), made with the support of Spike Lee, Canal+ France, CNC COSIP, and the Cypriot Ministry of Culture, premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival and was later presented at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Her previous short 'Semele' (2015) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win multiple awards internationally, including the Special Jury Prize (Generation Kplus) at the Berlin International Film Festival. Semele screened at more than seventy international film festivals and was subsequently broadcast by Canal+ France, ERT Greece, and Japan Airlines, among other platforms.
In addition to her filmmaking, Aristidou published the photographic book 'Mother India' (2009), with all proceeds donated to Médecins Sans Frontières, and co-founded the Sagapo Children’s Foundation, which supports educational initiatives in Cyprus, Madagascar, Mexico, Rwanda, and Vietnam.
Also read: ‘Find Me Falling’ becomes first movie produced in Cyprus to feature on Netflix
Also read: Cyprus film incentives scheme production ‘The Moustakas Sisters Mysteries' to make UK premiere
