Styx
Director: Wolfgang Fischer
Writer: Wolfgang Fischer, Ika Künzel
Cinematographer: Benedict Neuenfels
Key cast: Susanne Wolff, Gedion Wekesa Oduor, Kelvin Mutuku Ndinda
Producers: Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Bady Minck, Marcos Kantis, Martin Lehwald, Michal Pokorny
Running time: 93min
Language spoken: German
Production: AT, 2018
Awards (selection): Label Europa Cinemas + Prize of the Ecumenical Jury + Heiner-Carow-Award (Berlin), Best Film + Best Music & Sound Design + Audience Award (Schwerin), Best Performance to Susanne Wolff and Best Cinematography to Benedict Neuenfels (La Valetta), Creative Energy Award for Outstanding individual achievements to Suanne Wolff/acting & Benedict Neuenfels/cinematography (Emden-Norderney), Deutscher Menschenrechts-Filmpreis, German Metropolis Awards: Best Director + Best Actress Susanne Wolff + Award for contribution as a Producer Marcos Kantis, Erste Bank’s ExtraVALUE Film Award (Vienna/Viennale), Youth Jury Award (Luxembourg), Austrian Film Award: Best Director + Best Screenplay + Best Editing, German Film Award: Best Actress + Best Sound Design + Best Camera + Silver Lola for Best Film
Rike – 40, a doctor from Europe – embodies a typical Western model of happiness and success. She is educated, confident, determined and committed. We see Rike‘s everyday life, as an emergency doctor, before she fulfils a long-held dream and sails out to sea alone in her sailing boat. Her goal: Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean. But her dream holiday is quickly broken off on the high seas, when, after a storm, she finds herself near a stricken fishing boat. Around a hundred people are about to drown. Rike follows maritime law and radios for help. As her request is going nowhere, she is forced to make a fatal decision.