‘Hold Onto Me’ Director Myrsini Aristidou Kicks Off Historic Oscar Campaign for Sundance Audience Award Winner: ‘I Really Feel Like We’re Underdogs’

Cypriot director Myrsini Aristidou has begun an Oscar campaign for her debut feature, *Hold Onto Me*, after it won the World Cinema Dramatic audience prize at Sundance. Its selection as Cyprus’s international feature submission is a first for the country, and Aristidou says the campaign brings responsibility despite limited funds and uncertain prospects.

The film follows 11-year-old Iris as she tries to reconnect with her estranged father, Aris, who has returned to Cyprus for his own father’s funeral. Aristidou drew on her childhood experience of her parents’ divorce and says she wanted to portray the awkwardness of building a relationship with a parent who feels like a stranger. She returned to Cyprus after studying film in the United States to make the Greek-language film where she grew up.