When 11-year-old Iris’ absentee father, Aris, slinks back into town for his father’s funeral in their sleepy Greek fishing village, she tracks him down to an abandoned shipyard and tries to wedge herself into his pathetic little life. In writer-director Myrsini Aristidou’s Greek-language Hold Onto Me (Κράτα Με), this relationship, performed beautifully by Christos Passalis (Aris) and Maria Petrova (Iris) in a two-hander demanding unspoken sensitivity, is the scruffy, beating heart of a film about transformation and reluctant redemption. When we first meet Iris, she’s stealing a dilapidated, leaky boat with her older friend Danea (Jenny Sallo), just another day of drifting around their washed-up town. When we meet Aris, by contrast, we’re introduced to an irredeemable huckster of the highest order: a cigarette glued to his lip like a fifth appendage, engaging in petty theft, hawking chintzy goods, and generally being an abominable prick to his long-forgotten daughter. Read More