Cypriot filmmaker heads to Cannes with bold new short

There’s something quietly persistent about the way Alexandra Matheou makes films. She keeps returning to the private lives of women, not as isolated, intimate portraits, but as windows into the systems that shape them. It’s a perspective that has gradually set the Cypriot writer-director apart on the international short film circuit.

Now, she’s taking that voice to one of cinema’s biggest stages. Her latest short, Free Eliza (Notes on an Anatomical Imperfection), is set to premiere at...