You Have the Night

After 88 years of work, Montenegrin Bijela's shipyard is declared bankrupt: a devastating blow for the local community, where people depend on the yard for their livelihoods. In You Have the Night, cleaner Sanja lands in her hometown and realises that life is ebbing away, both literally and metaphorically. Some inhabitants try desperately to find new roles for buildings and machines. But the question is how long Sanja, her boyfriend and other relatives can keep it up.

Making his feature debut, Ivan Salatić uses hardly any music, consciously keeps dramatic plot twists off screen and regularly isolates his characters in their grey surroundings. In the empty harbour, for instance, or by deliberately leaving the other character out of shot. In You Have the Night, the chill atmosphere dominates everything. The disconsolate mood cuts through this anatomy of a community like an icy wind.