Lost Persons Area

A photo by the Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt of a group of women on a bench under the sign Lost Persons Area was the initial inspiration for Caroline Strubbe's feature debut, which was premiered during the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes where it won the SACD Screenwriting Award. This story about loneliness and alienation is set, very aptly, in a no-man's-land filled with high-tension masts and mobile homes. This is where Marcus lives, the foreman of the team that maintains the high-tension cables, and his bored wife Bettina, who runs a canteen for the workers. Their eccentric little seven-year-old daughter plays truant all the time and runs around the fields looking for objects out of which she builds strange constructions. The difficult relationship between Marcus and Bettina is put under pressure when Marcus hires the Hungarian Szalbolcs and a tragic accident happens. All four characters are lost in the meanders of life.