Name: Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic Winner | HOLD ONTO ME (Κράτα Με)
Released: 2025-12-17T14:01:10.147Z

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Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic Winner | HOLD ONTO ME (Κράτα Με)

Cyprus/Denmark/Greece2025102 min

11-year-old Iris learns her estranged father, Aris, is back in town for his own father’s funeral. Determined to know him, Iris tracks him down to a dilapidated shipyard, where he’s been keeping to himself. What begins as a stubborn attempt to reconnect slowly unfolds into a fragile bond.

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Christos Passalis (Aris) and Maria Petrova (Iris) each deliver a downright exceptional performance, burrowing this ragamuffin story deep into the bones of the viewer. Particularity of place, a lovely score, and confident direction make for a stellar debut feature by Myrsini Aristidou. This Cypriot filmmaker offers a perspective from within her home country that is all the more beautiful for its grit and honesty. Lending an unusual degree of complexity to its young protagonist, HOLD ONTO ME (Κράτα Με) explores through minute moments rendered in exquisite nuance how a lineage of paternal fracture manifests itself. Mapping how far the echoes of our closest relationships reach, this is a film that travels and illuminates every distant corner of young Iris’ emotional landscape — a deeply gratifying journey. — AC

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Credits

Director(s)
Myrsini Aristidou

Meet the Artist

Myrsini Aristidou

Myrsini Aristidou is a Cypriot writer-director whose shorts Semele (Toronto, Berlinale Special Jury Prize) and Aria (Venice, Sundance Film Festival) received international acclaim. Her debut feature, HOLD ONTO ME (Κράτα Με), marks her transition into long-form storytelling. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

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