Last night, Transilvania Film presented the gala premiere of Sons/ Vogter, directed by Gustav Moller, a disturbing psychological thriller with suspense, chases, confrontations, secrets, set in a maximum security prison and led by a protagonist strong and “cold”, in the good Nordic tradition.
Starring Sidse Babett Knudsen (famous in the Nordic cinema for the roles in Borgen or Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction), Sebastian Bull Sarning, Dar Salim, Marina Bouras, Vogter is the second feature film of Scandinavia director Gustav Möller, who made an impressive debut with the crime thriller The Guilty, in 2018.
Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Eva, a prison guard who believes that her actions can help the inmates on their way to social rehabilitation, only she finds herself facing a difficult moral dilemma when a young man from her past arrives at the prison. She asks to be assigned to the wing where he is, although this is where the most dangerous and unpredictable inmates are. Thus begins a haunting game of cat and mouse, a game that endangers Eva’s morality and future.
The film is crafted in the well-known Nordic style—dry and harsh, with the characters’ brief lines separated by long pauses that intensify the drama.
The main character, Eva, a middle-aged prison guard, hides a personal secret that intertwines with the narrative and sets off the main plot twist, all within the grim setting of a maximum-security prison. What is Eva’s tragedy and her implicit dilemma?
Sons/Vogter is a co-production between Denmark and Sweden was selected in the Competition at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear with its first screening on 22 February.
The film is hitting Romanian theaters on October 25, 2024. It is distributed in Romania by Transilvania Film.
The trailer is available here.