The first Cypriot-produced film to be streamed on Netflix is now part of history, but for me, that is not the only inspiring part. For me the inspiration comes from the film itself, the person behind it, her journey to help the Cyprus film industry get onto the international map, and how she gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, the size of this island and its limitations may not be the thing holding me back anymore.

The film is Find Me Falling and the woman behind it is South African-Cypriot writer, director, and producer Stelana Kliris.

Before Find Me Falling Stelana wrote and directed Committed. A film with basically two characters and one road. How she gave those two characters and that one road depth, symbolism, and substance is what made it great. On this one road, Stelana makes us see there are usually two sides to everything and double meanings if you choose to look closely. She does this because she really gets what makes humans tick and – I am guessing here – she has studied a few of them. If she is anything like me, she looks at what people buy in supermarkets and tries to picture their lives – then again, maybe that is just me.

Back to the point.

With Committed, Stelana does what great writers do: they take us on a ride, get us invested, make us fall in love with the characters, and then just with a twist at the end, make us question everything we have seen and even go right back to the beginning to witness the story all over again with this fresh information.

That was committed, and Stelana stayed committed to having one of her films picked up and shown on a bigger screen.

I met her through a very good friend about eight years ago. I asked her how things work, how things go from a page to the screen, and too many other things for me to remember. Then, a few years later, I reached out to her through email. A few months earlier, I had given myself a deadline to finish a script for an animated film. The deadline had come and gone, and I had my final draft. My daughter had just been born and I was on maternity leave – they say “when baby sleeps mum sleeps” but for me it was “when baby sleeps mum tries to get her writing out there.” Stelana was at the end of her pregnancy at the time, so I thought I would ask her opinion before she had her hands full. so after asking my friend for her email address, I sent her the script and asked for her opinion.

Her opinion was that I still had a way to go, but before she gave it to me, along with lots of advice and material to read, she congratulated me on completing a script. She told me that most people never get past the idea stage.

It was a long email, and although she said all I had to do was work on the script, I left it alone. Another story in the draw, another idea, another way to prove I was in the wrong place.

But what of Find Me Falling? It’s a feel-good film after all, so what am I doing bringing the atmosphere down?

The Feeling of Coming Together

When you live in Cyprus, you know everyone knows everyone. It is mentioned in the film in the context of it being a small place and something inevitable. In reality, sometimes you want to be somewhere where no one knows you. Sometimes you want to be left alone, to leave, and find your true self without all the noise. But at other times you are reminded of why the island being so small may not be such a bad thing.

This is where the balcony scene comes in.

A man and his daughter singing to the woman he loved all those years ago. A man was singing in a language he didn’t know and people gathered and joined in his song. They came together out of nowhere to help.

I cried. This is what we do here, even if no one is asking for it, we help. We feed people, we come together, and we believe in helping others achieve their dreams – even if they have stopped helping in it themselves.

Not an Inkling of Criticism

Cypriots are great at coming together but they are also great at criticising how they act and what they do. Parking is a great example. Someone smashed into my car the other day. It was parked on the side of the road and the sister of the woman who caused the accident said “she parked in the middle of the road like all Cypriots.”

There was none of that in the film. There could have been. It could have built on the comical side even more. But instead of going for the comedy of what Cypriots do to show the world our culture, Stelana went the other way.

The second place I cried.

See, my mum is 80 years old. She is beginning to forget things. She can’t do much anymore. A few years ago, she showed me some things at the back of her wardrobe and told me that when she dies I am to wrap her in that sheet. She had already shown me what she wants to be buried in. This memory came back to me while watching the film.

The grandmother shows her granddaughter that her suitcases is packed. She has everything ready for her funeral. She has done everything she needed to in life. It is time to go.

Women in Cyprus are tough. They look after everyone else and don’t want to burden anyone with anything they can do themselves. Sometimes they even bring up children on their own so they don’t ruin the dreams of others.

Cyprus is Portrayed as a Place to Find Yourself

I have a friend who calls Cyprus his very own Hotel California. ‘You can check out anytime you want but you can never leave.’ Once you have ties to the island, in whatever form, it always stays with you.

For me, I didn’t find myself here. I found myself when I went back to the UK but I found Cyprus when I left it.

I hated the place with a passion. It ruined any chances I had of being a great author, it took away the great stage performances, it took away the inspiration I thought I couldn’t find elsewhere. To a point, I was right. It took going back to the UK to find inspiration and after writing a few poems about this and that, I found myself writing poetry about the Helios Aircraft accident and how my family struggled for a better life abroad. I found myself writing a musical about 1974.

I had lived with Cyprus as a thorn in my side for years. It was a place that was ruining me and the place I had to leave to become the Maria I am today.

Not the case in the film. It is not portrayed as a place where a once-successful singer would come to end his career and hide the ruins of his life. It is shown as a place where he would heal. The broken cup at the very start and how he cuts himself on it symbolises the broken man we found on our screen. By the end of the film, we find that Cyprus is the place to put him together again.

Don’t Jump Ship, Talk About It

The film opens with a man jumping off a cliff and ends with a birthday party of a one-year-old on the same cliff. Like life, the film has come full circle and given us lots of lessons along the way.

The lessons:

Love where you come from. Find the quirky in it and concentrate on that, not the way we don’t know how to park or drive.

When faced with the difficult decision of where to bring us our children, most of us will choose the island. Family, after all, is family and it does take a village.

Being alone and not sharing will lead to your building a wall or fence around your heart.

The only thing holding you back is your own mind.

Go get the man. Sing the song. Send the message. Talk to a friend. Write. Write. Take the leap and write the story of the life the way you want it to be, envision your writing changing the world. Stelana did, so why can’t we?

Note: Feature image from Meraki Films website.