Nicosia, Cyprus. Cypriot film director Evren Maner has released his latest film, “Sofoklis,” centered on a man marked by loss and a longing to return to a Cyprus he feels he has lost. Maner says the story focuses on a human question of return and belonging rather than politics.
Origins of the film
Maner said the idea for “Sofoklis” began in his home, where he lives with his wife and daughter, and where he described a warm, welcoming environment. He said the film’s main character, also named Sofoklis, is rooted in a real story that stayed with him for years.
The film tells of a man who left Cyprus in the 1950s, built a life elsewhere, and, in his final days after checkpoints opened, found that a hurdle remained between him and his last wish to return.
A “quiet tragedy” without a political frame
“What drew me to it was the quiet tragedy,” Maner said, describing what he called the near-absurdity of someone living an entire life away and still being blocked at the end.
Maner said he did not approach the narrative as a political statement. “I wasn’t interested in making a political statement,” he said. “I was asking a human question, what does it mean to return, and what do we carry with us when we do?”
Home as something that shifts
In “Sofoklis,” Maner said, home is not presented as a simple place or a house, but as something that shifts and can slip away.
“The tragedy is not about a piece of land,” Maner said. “It is that he spent his whole life never really feeling at home anywhere.”
He said the theme resonates across the island in different ways, tied for some to memory and what has been lost, and for others, including younger people, to a sense of a future that could be different but has not yet arrived. “On this island, that feeling exists on both sides,” he said, adding that it takes different forms.
Maner’s path to filmmaking
Maner said he did not begin in cinema in a traditional way, spending years as a lecturer and later leading visual communications for a multimillion-euro company before leaving to focus fully on filmmaking.
How do you define “home” when it feels tied to loss, memory, or a future that has not yet arrived?