The debut feature film of Cypriot filmmaker Myrsini Aristidou, titled Hold Me, is coming to this year’s Sydney Film Festival, having already won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. The film will be screened on June 6 and 7 as part of the Festival’s official program.
Cypriot director Myrsini Aristidou makes an impressive feature-film debut with her new film Hold Me.
Blending humour and the harsh realities of a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship, the film won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival and will screen at this year’s Sydney Film Festival on June 6 and 7.
Hold Me is set in a seaside town in Cyprus and follows 11-year-old Iris, played by Maria Petrova, a confident girl who spends her summer riding her scooter, making TikTok videos and avoiding boys her own age.
But when she gets into trouble with the law after stealing a boat, her absent father Aris, portrayed by Christos Passalis, unwillingly returns to help her.
Their reunion develops into a fragile yet touching relationship, as father and daughter end up forming an unusual duo of petty criminals.
The director herself describes the story as deeply universal. As she said in an interview with SBS Greek, the inspiration came both from personal experiences and from the timeless need of a child to seek love and protection from a parent, even when it is not offered in the way the child hopes for.
“I believe that the story of Hold Me is quite universal and timeless. A father-daughter story has, in a way, always existed. The inspiration comes from personal experiences and elements, but also from this idea of wanting protection or love, or expecting protection and love from a father or someone close to you, and not receiving it exactly as you would like,” she said.
The father-daughter relationship lies at the heart of the film, with Aristidou emphasising that, from a cinematic perspective, she is particularly fascinated by the reversal of roles: the father often appears immature and childlike, while the child displays unexpected maturity. According to her, this dynamic creates an intriguing space for exploration between the characters.
“First of all, there is the vulnerability of being young while the other person, the father, is older. Cinematically, that naturally creates the sense that the younger person is searching for protection from the older one. On the other hand, it is beautiful when the characters become intertwined in such a way that the father is somewhat immature and childlike, despite being older and taller, while the child displays a certain seriousness. That makes for an interesting exploration of the relationship between the characters,” she notes.
The production of the film was anything but easy. Filming took place during the Cypriot summer, with temperatures reaching as high as 45 degrees Celsius. The Cypriot director described the experience as particularly demanding, especially because of the many outdoor shoots and the collaboration with a child actor, which required, as she said, “patience, understanding and a great deal of love.”
“The Cypriot summer was indeed a major challenge during filming. We had temperatures of 43 degrees Celsius, sometimes even 45. It was essentially a heatwave, which made the entire experience extremely difficult because we had many outdoor shoots. That was certainly challenging. Working with a child is never easy, because children get tired and, of course, they are not professional actors. So there has to be a lot of understanding, patience, love and care. And, obviously, making an independent production in Cyprus, which is a small country, is not easy. We had to bring people from abroad, from Greece and Denmark, including crew members and equipment. It is difficult when you do not always have sufficient funding to do exactly what you want,” she said.
Hold Me will be screened as part of the Sydney Film Festival on Saturday, June 6 at 6:15 pm and Sunday, June 7 at 1:15 pm.
