Cypriot filmmaker Tonia Mishiali tackles immigration, patriarchy and the strength of women in “The Lion at My Back,” screening in the Crystal Globe competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The film follows the bond that grows between Senegalese immigrant Mariama (Sokhna Diallo) and Stella (Elena Kallinikou), a woman working at an immigration center in Cyprus who is trying to rebuild her life.

“Each one has their own problems, their struggles,” says the director about her second feature film. He wanted to take advantage of what he had created in “Pausa”, his first feature film. “So I thought, well, two parallel stories. I follow one, then when they meet, I transcend into the other, and then every time they meet, I started building their relationship more and more to become more organic in some way.”

Mariama, despite facing limited job prospects and racism, is happy, almost cheerful, with life, while Stella is bitter and cynical but clings to hope, and Mishiali subtly doles out the characters’ backstories, constructing well-rounded women who have been used and abused by a patriarchal society (but doesn’t engage in controversy; she also skillfully creates well-rounded portraits of male characters). But Mishiali refuses to let them give up, which is what keeps her going: she focuses her films on social justice and women’s issues.

But the film is also about motherhood, as Stella fights to regain custody of her young daughter and begins to treat Mariama like a daughter as well. “I wanted it to be a note about motherhood. I have a teenage daughter; well, when I started writing the film, she was a teenager. I wanted to write a film about the complex relationship between mothers and daughters, because I think it’s very special, but very complex at the same time.”

She also wanted to write a film about refugees, having been one herself as a child during the 1970s, after Türkiye invaded Cyprus in 1974.

“We were forced to flee our homes, I was only 1 year old, I don’t remember much, but this was a trauma that my family carried all these years. We were kicked out of our homes and we carried that ‘refugee’ feeling and bitterness. But then I met all these African women, these asylum seekers in Cyprus, and I couldn’t believe how positive these people were,” she says. “They always looked at life in a positive way, they were grateful for being where they are. Everything that is a struggle, they don’t see it as a struggle. They are very resilient. So I wanted to combine these two stories, and that’s how I came up with the idea of ​​Mariama and Stella.”

She is passionate about highlighting the stories of women marginalized by society and framing her characters in a world in which they are not respected. “I wanted to position these two characters within this culture… patriarchy still exists and I see it every day, I witness it every day, and as a filmmaker as well, we have struggles, and we also have to trust each other and respect each other,” he says.

When asked about her cinematographic influences, she highlights Chantal Akerman and her film “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.” “In my opinion, it remains one of the most important feminist films ever made and was one of the first films that inspired me to adopt a female perspective in my own cinema,” she says.

The film is produced by Bark Like a Cat Films (Cyprus), co-produced by Iris Prods. (Luxembourg) and Avalon Films (Greece). Yellow Affair handles international sales.