To the North

Original title: Spre nord
Genre: Thriller / Drama
Director: Mihai Mincan
Country: omania, Greece, Czechia, France, Bulgaria
Year of production: 2022
Czas: 123 min

Awards and nominations:
2024 Gopo Awards: Best Cinematography
2024 Gopo Awards: Best Debut Film
2024 Gopo Awards: Young Hope Award

Real life stories like this one go well with social interests of Romanian filmmaker, Mihai Mincan. The action takes place in the open sea in mid 1990s. On his shift aboard a transatlantic ship, Joel (Soliman Cruz), a religious sailor from the Philippines, discovers Dumitru (Nikolai Becker), a stowaway from Romania. If denounced, the stowaway will be punished by death. Joel decides to save him in the name of God. A dangerous cat-and-mouse game with Taiwanese authorities ensues. Little by little, the crew, the closest friends, and even God himself start to turn away from the good Samaritan... In his feature directorial debut, oscillating between a genre film and a documentary, Mincan shows how good he is with actors and building a dense atmosphere. The ambiguous characters’ moral dilemmas keep viewers on the edge of their seats. Equally brilliant are George Chiper’s („Immaculate”) evocative cinematography and Alessandro Cortini and Marius Leftãrache’s music score.

Author: Piotr Dobry

Director:
Mihai Mincan – a philosophy graduate from the Bucharest University. He began his career as a journalist, but collaborating with the biggest Romanian newspapers soon wasn’t enough. He started directing short films, animations, and documentaries for television. His feature directorial debut, „To the North” premiered in the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival.

   subtitles in Polish and English