Cold Water of the Sea

One of the strongest films at this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival and one of three winners of that festival’s Tiger Award, this is the debut of Paz Fábrega, a Costa Rican writer-director and graduate of the globally thinking London Film School. This warm work draws parallels between Karina, a poor, distressed young girl living on the beach with her family, and Mariana, a young, disaffected middle-class woman who is on a New Year’s holiday in a deserted hotel with her boyfriend, who is taking the opportunity to complete a property deal in the area. Fábrega parallels their problems and finds their reflections in the landscapes around them. It’s a thoughtful film, mysterious and unafraid of silence.