The philosopher Edmund Burke has fled London, debt collectors and a ramping midlife crisis to go on a grandtour of the Alps to rewrite his treatise on the sublime. Stakes are high – his future depends on the success of the new edition of his youth masterpiece and his bold face-to-face meeting with nature. He is accompanied only by a young and beautiful native servant Awak from plantations. Her connection to the wild elements seems astonishing. Soon he discovers that nature stings, itches and fails to give him any enlightenment. The mysteries of the sublime refuse to be unlocked…

An absurd allegory of our human relation to the natural world. At the end of the film, the director has made Burke stand on a cliff, just like in the Caspar David Friedrich’s painting ‘Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’, thus  emphasizing both the majesty of the landscape and the insignificance of the individual in it. It must be said that the protagonist’s twisted mind is in no way in line with his historical prototype.

Jury statement: Bringing forth the eternal conflict between the rational and the irrational, it transcends historical accuracy to inquire into the philosophical and aesthetical contents of its subject matter through mostly visual cinematic language. All that without losing the lightness of step and humour along the way.