Our film review for Tonia Mishiali's feature film 'The Lion at My Back'.
Motherhood needs to survive in (female) company. This is a strong message coming from the sensitively written and acted sophomore feature by Tonia Mishiali (our review of 'Pause' here), presented this year at the 2026 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival competition (Crystal Globe), a Cyprus/Luxemourg/Greek co-production.
With its first shot being an 18th-birthday cake celebration (a coming-of-age sign and decision-making atmosphere), the Cyprus-set 'The Lion at My Back' presents the black Mariama (Sokhna Diallo), whose birthday in the children's immigrant shelter the film celebrates. Candles are lit by the hand of Stella (Elena Kallinikou), a woman who has worked for a number of years in the facility, being a former drug addict (and constantly monitored). It is their common story that the film chooses to tell, a female buddy story that manages to feel warm and empathetic despite its heavy connotations.
The answers lie with the characters themselves. 18-year-old Mariama has an impossible task: she needs to navigate the external (sometimes hostile, sometimes exploitative) world, yet she's armed with confidence and good sense -even when Cypriot residents cannot let her have a room to rent (despite having the means) or a job to get. The irritable and massively insecure Stella is in the middle of a lawsuit, trying to get her daughter Zoe back to her (her drug past has separated the two). What one character lacks (bed & board & a job for Mariama, emotional validation for Stella), the other character seems to provide.
So, the film moves in concrete cuts, with the camera following the two leads into their world in a socio-realistic fashion. The script (by Tonia Mishiali, co-written by Dianne Jones and Simona Nobile) sometimes opens into two equivalent, mirror-like stories (check the significance of stray dogs and dog fantasies). and becomes even richer (like the romantic/sexual escapades of both leads and their significance in the film's middle act). Yet, most of the time, it traces both Mariama's immigrant adaptation process (her work at the butchery shop and her romance) and Stella's financial needs, which seem to be secured.
We get no big social issue statements here, even though a society of men who doesn't love misfits is clearly portrayed; Even though Mariama in the beginning seems to readily fall into a delinquent act (inviting readily-made social criticism accusations), in the end everything is filtered by the two leads' intrinsic traits and not accidental mishaps (whose two-shot scenes in the beach give the film's epitomy of sentimental value). It is as if the two leads of Schlesinger's 'Midnight Cowboy' are now an affectionate mother-daughter surrogate couple.
The film's title suggests both the incomparable hurdles they need to get away from, while the characters add the sea in front of them as an additional hurdle. The Cypriot environment is depicted as a matter of fact by DoP Manu Tilinski, with a cold, bluish palette that precludes any easy association with ethereal island beauty (the island's hostile nature is mirrored in frustrated Stella's utterances as well, about "disconnecting us from our very souls"). Even though in one of the film's more evocative scenes, Mariama lies down and watches a slug, exhibiting a more serene view of what that island would be like. Still, this is a place where things have to work in an environment bound with fence iconography, and a gritty 16mm film print; yet, in one of the film's most interesting sequences (even though bordering on sex negativity), Stella (and Mariama in a second try) will get a darker and more aggressive BDSM environment.
It takes some time for the two adaptation stories to reach their peaks; Sokhna Diallo and Elena Kallinikou beautifully complement each other, alternating between caring, frustrated, and decisive. In a film that explores societal unease, it is surprising how many positive statements of solidarity the two characters hear ("You stood up for me" is one). 'The Lion at My Back' holds fast to its older-younger woman bond, and its portrayal of the mother-daughter role feels genuine and justified.
Vassilis Kroustallis
'The Lion at My Back' world premiered at the 2026 Karlovy Vary Festival.
