Overnight Flies

Some half a decade after Persona Beach, Georg Tiller returned to Fårö for a new film again featuring Edward Weki. Of the three films they have made together so far, Overnight Flies has become the one least connected to the legacy of the island's most famous erstwhile inhabitant, Ingmar Bergman. While one can indeed draw some loose parallels to Hour of the Wolf and Shame (1968), consider the strangers here debris of a world in turmoil, unnecessary for the proceedings. This is very much Weki's film. He's walking the island with a video camera of dubious quality, recording his surroundings, maybe searching for reflections of the life he had once in another world, maybe looking for a sign of something greater and kinder in that most overlooked of treasure troves: the present as such. Sometimes, Jan tags along with Edward. Jan is a somewhat mysterious fellow, a solitudinarian with an ascetic streak who carries his own history in silence. Overnight Flies is a landscape film: an essay on time passing through spaces and the beauty that is to be found in its contemplation. Which maybe makes this Weki's and Tiller's very own Fårö Document...! (International Film Festival Rotterdam)