Hold Onto Me

In a seaside town in Cyprus, self-assured 11-year-old Iris (Maria Petrova) spends her summer holidays scooting around with her bestie, filming TikTok dances and fending off boys. When she winds up in trouble with the law for stealing a boat, her absent dad Aris (Christos Passalis, Dogtooth) reluctantly resurfaces to bail her out. A chain-smoking drifter living in a shipyard, Aris resists Iris’s eager attempts at reconnection. That’s until he realises she could come in handy as a sidekick in his hairbrained get-rich schemes. Writer-director Aristidou’s Paper Moon-esque debut captures their fragile bond beautifully, with wonderfully lived-in performances and confident direction providing believability and nuance.