Crossing Lake Mecklenburg in a red kayak, Kerstin wants to forget the past. She aimlessly glides on the surface of the lake for days among tourists, strangers, and other like-minded people. She longs for solitude and knows the many rivers and lakes well. But where is Kerstin from? What is she running from? What is chasing her? The peaceful flow of this journey will be interrupted by an encounter with Alim: she is the rare person who asks the right questions.

Director Max Gleschinski’s work tricks the viewer with its initial set-up (in a good way) — as the film picks up pace and momentum, it takes on a completely different narrative trajectory. Explaining the changing contours of nature in the film, he says: “The place is constantly being rediscovered through the appearance of the different protagonists and the conflict, which is very nebulous at the beginning, and becomes more tangible with each new added perspective.” Rostock-born Gleschinski has studied English philology and philosophy. Alaska is his second feature-length film and in 2021, he won the German Screenwriters’ Prize Lola for Best Screenplay.