‘Hold Onto Me’ East Coast premiere

It’s summer, and 11-year-old Iris is running wild through the streets with her older friend Danae when she learns her estranged father, Aris (“Dogtooth” star Christos Passalis), is back in town for his own father’s funeral. Determined to know him, Iris tracks him down to a dilapidated shipyard, where he’s been keeping to himself. What begins as a stubborn attempt to reconnect slowly unfolds into a fragile bond. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

“Hold Onto Me” will screen as part of Belmont World Film’s 24th International Film Series, “Thicker than water,” exploring the ties that bind—and sometimes limit us—through an intimate and far-reaching collection of stories about families in all their complexity. Across cultures and continents, these films ask what we inherit, what we carry, and what we owe one another.

The series unfolds over eight consecutive Mondays at the West Newton Cinema. After a two-week break, the series returns in June with three additional remarkable films in recognition of World Refugee Awareness Month and Pride Month.

For complete details on the films in this series, visit our web site.