Hold onto Me
Winner of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Audience Award, Myrsini Aristodou’s sensitive debut resonates with deeply felt authenticity and lasting emotional power. Precocious 11-year-old Iris is used to being on her own. Left alone while her mother vacations with a boyfriend and ignored by her peers, Iris distracts herself by doing what she does best: getting into trouble. When local law enforcement detains her, an unforeseen figure emerges to bail her out, the father she has never known. Though his interests appear selfish, they bond through a shared talent for scams and desire for connection, beginning a delicate dance of testing trust and discovering each other. With an exquisite eye for detail and the confident casting of expressive Maria Petrova, a non-actor, in the role of Iris, Aristodou balances fragility and longing with effortless control, announcing herself not just as a filmmaker to watch, but one worthy of awe. —Landon Zakheim
Director/s
Myrsini Aristidou
Myrsini Aristidou is a Cypriot filmmaker whose work has received international acclaim. She studied Film and Art History at Pratt Institute in New York before earning her MFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her short films Semele (2015) and Aria (2017) premiered at major festivals including Venice, Sundance, Berlinale, and TIFF, with Semele winning the Jury Prize in the Generation section at the Berlinale. A former Cannes Cinéfondation Resident and alumna of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab, TIFF Talent Lab, and Berlinale Talents, her debut feature Hold Onto Me marks her transition into feature filmmaking.