Cyprus has the last divided capital in the world, meaning it features in many forms of expression, be it literature, music or film. Migration, nostalgia and the Buffer Zone are recurring elements you’ll spot in some way or another in Cypriot films. Below are some of the most famous featured Cypriot movies.

Clementine (2017)

Director Longinos Panagi’s first feature film recently premiered at the Cyprus Film Days International Festival. Clementine is a surreal comic drama that focuses on a young boy who comes across two strange men in Cyprus, an encounter that triggers a spiritual awakening. The film is set in numerous locations of Cyprus; the daunting Ayios Sozomenos, Pervolia village, Ayios Theodoros village, Athalassa area and the old, divided neighbourhood of Kaimakli. With the traumatic past of the war in mind, this Cypriot-produced film shows the beauty and harshness of the island’s landscape with a young girl named Clementine symbolising the modern history of the island.

Smuggling Hendrix (2018)

Another film that addresses the island’s division in a comic manner is Smuggling Hendrix. The films follows failed musician Yiannis as he attempts to get his dog back to the Greek-Cypriot side of the divide, after he runs away across the checkpoint in Nicosia. With only three days before his move to the Netherlands, Yiannis is faced with absurd regulations that forbid the transport of live animals from one side to another. The struggle to smuggle the dog back is, of course, symbolic of the trials that many Cypriots face every day as they try to deal with the legalities of the Green Line. The film has earned international recognition and has just won Best World Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.