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La Fine del Mare (D/F/I 2006)  

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Todor is a small-time smuggler of cigarettes, working from the harbour of Trieste. One day he reluctantly accepts a commission to transport an unusually large crate. Too late, he discovers that it contains the body of a young woman, drugged and unconscious.

Todor makes the fateful decision not to fulfill the delivery and instead to protect the human cargo who will end up capsizing his life.

Pina
Womb

The Countess
Women Without Men
Nothing but Ghosts
Trip to Asia
La Fine del Mare
Paradise Now
Fateless
Jena Paradies
Heimkehr
Silent Waters
Weg!

                            
Director Nora Hoppe  
Camera Rimvydas Leipus  
Sound Sergey Moshkov, Bernd von Bassewitz  
Production Design Olivier Meidinger  
Costumes Saskia Richter, Riccarda Merten-Eicher  
Editing Vessela Martschewski  
Line Producer Peter Hermann  
1st AD Bojana Sutic  
Unit / Location Manager Sabina Doerr, Alessandro Coleschi  
Producers Helge Albers, Philippe Avril  
     
Principal Cast Miki Manojlovic  
  Diana Dobreva  
  Giuseppe Battiston  
     
Production Companies Flying Moon Filmproduktion, Potsdam  
  Unlimited, Strasbourg  
  Revolver, Roma  
     
Filming Location Italien: Trieste  
Shooting Period 04.04. - 13.05.05  
Format 35 mm / 1:1,85 / ca. 110 Min.  
   
Synopsis  


Trieste. Some call it the capital of Nowhere. A crossroads of cultures, epochs, empires and ruins. Life and death...

Todor (50), a Serbian petty smuggler, passes crates of contraband cigarettes and liquor from sham fishing boats at sea on to other middlemen on a defunct pier in the city's harbour. A burnt-out loner, he is saving money to purchase a piece of isolated land somewhere in Herzegovina to erase the memories of a past full of loss and a pointless present.

One day he accepts a commission to deliver a larger box for more money to one of his middlemen, known as "Dolce". On the journey to the smugglers' pier he hears a sound from within the box. Upon prying one of the sides open, the body of a woman tumbles out... filthy, bruised, heavily drugged and wearing nothing but a tattered cotton dress...

Instead of passing her on as human merchandise to a fate of prostitution, he takes her home. Now he finds himself in a fix: he has betrayed the smugglers, he cannot go to the police, he cannot take the woman to hospital and must care for her himself - and, what is more, she is an intrusion into his secluded world. When the woman finally regains consciousness she has a savage reaction to the injuries and injustice done her and immediately assumes Todor to be her aggressor. Nilofar (30) is a phenomenal singer of Iranian origin who recently lost her voice after having endured a traumatic personal ordeal for which she shows signs of torture. She had herself smuggled out of her land and was headed for Paris before she was double-crossed by her smugglers. Now without money or documents she is unable to move, and her presence in the harbour town is proof of Todor's betrayal to the smuggling ring. Todor's only hope of extricating himself from this predicament is to acquire a false passport for her, but it is costly and will take some time to be made. Paradoxically his attempts to get rid of her only get him into deeper trouble.

Nilofar, of a temperamental and enigmatic nature, paces the desolate rooms of the neglected flat like a beast in captivity; she is mistrustful of Todor's true intentions, while Todor vacillates between lust and disgust. Glimpses and stolen gazes betray their constantly mutating feelings. Stuck with one another for a certain period of time, the atmosphere is tense, the air is laden with frustration, fear, rage and longing. Todor seeks respite in a tavern he frequents. There he engages in light banter with Aurelio, a gruff-voiced, dark-lensed character whom he met through his wife before she died.
When Todor is forced to kill the suspecting "Dolce", who has broken into the flat and discovered Nilofar, the killing makes accomplices of the two and momentarily diminishes the barriers between them. Death has brought them a strange intimacy... and vulnerability. They briefly lose themselves in physical rapture only to awaken later to feelings of shame and regret. They limit their communication to gazes, sharing few words and never calling each other by name. Todor struggles to retain his detachment and impenetrability and longs for his isolated piece of land. Nilofar tries to focus on the goal she set for her journey to Paris - ultimately a quest for revenge.

In the meantime the smuggling ring begins closing in on Todor, while a suspecting corrupt police detective tries to blackmail him. Helped by Aurelio, Todor moves Nilofar to an empty derelict building that once housed the city's school for the blind, and he pays extra money to rush the passport deal. But when the two find themselves separated, their objectives suddenly grow abstract and meaningless to them, and they begin to long for a deeper kind of something they can perhaps find in one another...
Nevertheless time has now run out for them, and both are forced to flee - perhaps together. But Nilofar has disappeared, and Todor, in desperation, sets off to seek her on the city's streets. And, as he wanders on through the night, on a spiritual odyssey, one of the thugs in the smuggling ring silently catches up with him...
 

 
Related Links Crew and Cast List (@ Crew United)  
  More about the Film (Flying Moon Filmproduktion)