Vinyan
(2008)

Country: Australia, Belgium, France, UK

Genre: Drama, Horror

Synopsis

Six months after losing her only child Joshua (Borhan Du Welz) in the 2004 Asian tsunami, Jeanne is convinced that she has seen footage of him in a film about orphans living in the jungles of Burma. Whilst her husband finds it hard to believe their son is still alive, he agrees to search for their son with her. For an exorbitant fee, triad leader Thakin Gao agrees to help them find their boy. At first they travel to the Mergui Archipelago, where Jeanne witnesses a ritual on the seashore where people cast balloons into the night. Thakin Gao explains that when someone dies a bad death, they become a confused, angry spirit called a 'vinyan', and the balloons are to help guide the spirits to the land of the dead. As the couple travel on to ever more obscure regions, Paul gradually realises that his wife is losing her tenuous grip on reality; and when the couple end up on an island inhabited by lost male orphans who have become completely savage, the full horror of their situation finally engulfs them.

Notes

• Written and directed by Belgian filmmaker Fabrice Du Welz (b. 1972)
• Winner of the Carnet Jove Jury Award at the 2008 Sitges-Catalonian International Film Festival (the Award was a tie between this film and the 2008 Japanese animated drama "Sukai kurora")