Hold Onto Me Archives - Silver Screen Riot

Sundance 2026 delivered one last cinematic dump (in a good way, like powder on a snow-barren mountain) before packing up and leaving Park City for good. From chilling headphone horror to sex comedies with emotional rot, audacious midnight freakouts to quietly devastating documentaries, this year’s lineup proved that the festival still has what it takes to be one of the preeminent film festivals in the world. Although I didn’t get a chance to see everything I had hoped to see (Leviticus top on the list of those I’ll be anxiously awaiting), I still managed to watch more Sundance premieres this year (35 total) than nearly any other year covering the festival. As should then be assumed, I have a pretty good handle on what was what so I full more than qualified to give a complete rundown of the best films from Sundance 2026. Read More

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