To the North
A harrowing maritime thriller about a Filipino worker on a freight ship who discovers a Romanian stowaway on board. Believing it is a sign from God, the worker helps the young man hide from the Taiwanese officers intent on quashing any sign of danger.
Producer Radu Stancu scheduled to attend.
Those galvanized by the works of Robert Bresson and Dostoevsky, or drawn to the difficult nuances of cross-cultural turbulence, should find their interests piqued with Mihai Mincan's maritime thriller To the North. The squeaking center of man's faith is set off on a violent course when a duo of Romanian refugees seeking asylum in the West stow away onto a shipping vessel, unknowing of the pre-existing tensions spurred on by racial inequities already on board. Upon being discovered by Joel (Soliman Cruz), a spiritually principled Filipino worker employed by the Taiwanese-led operation, intents initially marked by their moral purity are gradually muddied as increasing concatenation between the mix of different bodies swells into a gray zone of blurred actions. Mincan contains the uniquely multi-linguistic attempts at communication by his cast with a feverish tonality in direction. Characters speak in stern phrases as psychological strains accrue through discrepancies in dialogue and privately held motives. Pressure cooks until all are stripped bare to their most naked form of suffering. It's a classic set-up: strand a group of men at sea and in time bear witness to the ailments eternally plaguing the soul.
—Dannzel Escobar
- Original Language Title: Spre Nord
- Director: Mihai Mincan
- Principal Cast: Niko Becker, Soliman Cruz, Bart Guingona, Olivier Ho Hio Hen
- Country: Romania
- Year: 2022
- Running Time: 122 min.
- Producer: Radu Stancu, Ioana Lascar
- Screenplay: Mihai Mincan
- Cinematographers: George Chiper-Lillemark
- Editors: Dragoș Apetri
- Music: Marius Leftarache
- Website: Official Film Website
- Filmography: The Man Who Would Be Free (2019, Doc.), Emigrant Blues: a Road Movie in 2 1/2 Chapters (2019, Doc.), Bondoc (2015)
- Language: English, Tagalog, Spanish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Mandarin
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- International Sales: Best Friend Forever