Young Dutch director Ricky Rijneke examines with meticulous shots the fragile dividing line between life and death in her feature debut. Hungarian Csilla wakes up inside a crashed car, somewhere in the countryside. Her younger brother Isti is nowhere to be found. Dazed, Csilla leaves the spot to begin a second life, as she promised her brother she would. She’ll never return. Persuaded by the shady Gabor – he is involved in ‘import and export’ – she sets off with him in a freighter to Western Europe. During the endless journey, Gabor violates her and Csilla loses her only reminder of Isti. Slowly, she loses her grip. Life on board the freighter is like a vacuum in which Csilla finds herself – a surrealistic twilight zone. For Silent Ones, a former CineMart project, Rijneke brought together dexterously a choice selection of prize-winning European film talent, including Gergely Pohárnok (Hukkle, Taxidermia) and Jean-Paul de Zaeytijd (Bouli Lanners’ regular DOP) for the camera work. Andrej Dergatchev (who worked on The Return and The Banishment by Andrej Zvjagintsev) sets the tone for the film with his dreamy-ominous soundtrack. With her expressive face and few words, the Hungarian Orsi Tóth (Delta, WomenWithout Men) portrays a young woman fighting herself and her past.
