Styx

'Styx' reminds us of the plight of refugees who risk everything in the ocean, and the damage caused by bureaucracy and by-the-book policy. A work of nail-biting drama that is not only superbly executed but exceedingly timely, it is a film that deserves to be screened widely in Australia so it can be seen by all.

• Jake Watt

Read Jake's full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-styx-an-intense-nautical-morality-tale

Head to https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/germanfilmfest for more German Film Festival reviews.

A story about a choice between two equally untenable options

the

go home blacks

refugees

dirty immigrants

asylum seekers

sucking our country dry

niggers with their hands out

they smell strange

savage

messed up their country and now they want

to mess ours up

how do the words

the dirty looks

roll off your backs

maybe because the blow is softer

than a limb torn off

• Warsan Shire; "Home" (2015)

It was a rough coast, a coast of high cliffs and pounding waves; nature defended it. But it was_, when all was said and done, one of the coasts of a country that was a lifeboat, and that lifeboat was under siege by people who wanted to be taken on board. She thought to the southern shores of Italy and the boats that came up from the south, crammed with the desperate of North Africa striving to get into Europe. The vessels capsized under their human cargo; there were people in the water, their dream coming to a watery end. How could one turn one's face against all of that? What sort of person would one have to be to sail past?_

• Alexander McCall Smith; The Novel Habits of Happiness (2015)

In Homer's Odyssey, returning from the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men must pass through a narrow strait, one side of which is home to the six-headed sea monster Scylla, whilst the other is home to Charybdis, an underwater sea monster who causes a whirlpool at the surface capable of swallowing entire ships. Prior to reaching the straits, the goddess Circe advises Odysseus to sail closer to Scylla than Charybdis, telling him, "better by far to lose six men and keep your ship than lose your entire crew". Hoping to somehow outwit both monsters, Odysseus tells his crew about Charybdis, but not Scylla, and ultimately, although they avoid the whirlpool, Scylla eats six of his men.

Written by Wolfgang Fischer and Ika Künzel, and directed by Fischer, Styx has nothing to do with...