There isn’t a single superfluous moment in Wolfgang Fischer’s near-silent drama, in which super competent paramedic Rike (Susanne Wolff) embarks on a solo Atlantic sailing trip to Ascension Island, only to bump into a sinking trawler full of desperate refugees. Defying the coast guard’s instructions to essentially let them die, she ends up with a dangerously unpredictable stowaway on her Teutonically maintained and equipped vessel. So yes, the message about murderous western indifference to its own victims is loud and clear. But with such effective, precise performances on both sides of the camera—making tension a constant in the changing inflection of physical and moral jeopardy—Styx emerges as one of the fest’s best. 

Published October, 2018