Wolfgang Fischer’s allegory for Western indifference feels only too real when a woman on a solo sailing trip across the Atlantic happens upon a sinking boat full of refugees. Styx is aptly named (the river in Greek mythology that separates our world from the underworld) The film follows Rike (Susanne Wolff) as she confidently manages her tiny, bright white sailed called Asa Gray, across 5,000 km of open Atlantic. Rike must navigate more than high seas and inclement weather; she must also decide which world she belongs in.

The film begins with an immediate understanding of the intense psychological and physical pressures of Rike’s profession as a doctor and first responder in Cologne, Germany. When she sets sail for Ascension Island — midway between Africa and South America — from Gibraltar, her 12-metre yacht paling in comparison to the mammoth cargo ships with which she shares the ocean, it’s clear that she’s an accomplished sailor and prepared for a long journey. But when her daily routine is thrown off by a powerful storm, Rike wakes up to a sinking ship of over a 100 refugees – crisis of a material and moral scale that she could never have anticipated.