PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Wolfgang Fischer, director of the film Styx.
Wolfgang Fischer’s latest film, Styx, is one of the finalist films of the 2018 LUX Prize, and was screened at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, where it was featured in the program of the Giornate degli Autori strand. Fischer tells us the exciting and dangerous adventure of the story, a Herzog-like journey, with much of the film being shot on open water. In this interview, he also tells us about his formative years working as an assistant for Paul Morrissey and Nan Hoover, and spares a thought on European cinema.
Styx: 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.