27 Nov €3,000 IEFTA Award goes to “Hold Me (If You Want)” at Torino FilmLab 2025
At this year’s TorinoFilmLab (TFL), the International Emerging Film Talent Association proudly presented the IEFTA Award (funded by IEFTF, a €3,000 contribution intended for directors from emerging territories) to filmmaker Mounia Akl (Lebanon) for her compelling project Hold Me (If You Want), a story in which a bride spirals into madness, seeking love and sanity in a world that lost both.
IEFTA is thrilled to support this moving project and its talented creators on their journey. Congratulations to Mounia Akl!
Mounia Akl
WRITER & DIRECTOR
Mounia Akl is a Lebanese director and writer, member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her first feature film, Costa Brava, Lebanon (with Nadine Labaki and Saleh Bakri), premiered in 2021 in the official selection of the Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival where it won the Netpac Award, and BFI London Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. In its premiere in Egypt at the Gouna Film Festival, it won both the Fipresci prize and the Green Star Award.
It was released in the US by Kino Lorber and then on Netflix. It was inspired by one of her short films, Submarine, which premiered at the 69th Cannes Film Festival (Cinéfondation) and TIFF 2016.
Mounia is currently developing her next feature film Hold Me (If You Want) cowritten with Livia Ullman and Andris Felmanis, known for Compartment No. 6 directed by Juho Kuosmanen, that received the Grand Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021.
Mounia has directed TV shows, most recently BBC Studios’ shows Boiling Point with Stephen Graham, The Responder with Martin Freeman and Netflix’s House of Guinness by Steven Knight. Hold Me (If You Want) is produced by Myriam Sassine and Sophie Erbs, already producers on Costa Brava, Lebanon.
Hold Me (If You Want)
Synopsis
Dalia and Eli, both in their thirties, have built a safe bubble amid Beirut’s economic and social tensions as they plan their wedding. Days before the ceremony, Dalia begins experiencing hallucinations, feeling like a stranger in her own home. Sleep-deprived, she wonders into the mountains, where a nun from a nearby psychiatric hospital takes her in.
There, Dalia reconnects with reality but grows attached to this fractured world. Incidentally, che is obsessing over Paul, a recovering addict who avoids contact. When the hospital announces a “resocialisation” release, Paul is set free while Dalia is not. She escapes to find him. Their brief, intense time together awakens his addictive side, and they start a passionate relationship. But Eli eventually tracks them down and Paul flees.
Dalia and Eli search nighttime Beirut for him, finding him volatile, and bring him back home. While the psychiatric ward is closed, Paul must stay with them. During a fragile dinner, grief turns to laughter, and all three realise that, though their future is uncertain, they have profoundly touched each other.