La fine del mare

Todor, a Serbian smuggler in Trieste, Italy, earns his daily bread by smuggling fake brand cigarettes. He sails out in a small boat to collect his freight if there is enough mist to make his illegal mission possible. One day he reluctantly accepts a much larger cargo. In the crate he finds a wounded and drugged woman.
Todor decides not to deliver the freight and takes the woman home with him. He takes a chest full of stones to his client and it soon becomes apparent that he has got himself into big trouble with this manoeuvre. Todor takes care of the woman, who slowly but surely overcomes her fear of him. By the time he manages to get her a passport, an unbreakable bond has silently grown between them and he asks her to go away with him. Fate decides otherwise.
La fine del mare tells a story of human trafficking and immigration, of people who don’t feel at home anywhere in an unknown no-man’s-land (translated into misty nights, deserted streets and sober rooms).
The attractive visual quality of the film is exceptional; every shot seems to have been drawn by hand and painted in clear tints of grey and blue. In Todor’s stuffy apartment, the movements of the characters are directed as in a taut choreography. Thanks to the refined acting and restrained camera work, the film gains even more intimacy in these demarcated physical circumstances. (SdH)