"First time features this audacious come once in a blue moon … will leave you awe-struck in the literal sense of the word." – Indiewire

While Hitler's Final Solution rolled out across Europe, Stalin was planning his own quiet act of genocide: the mass deportation and execution of more than half-a-million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as he rooted out anti-Soviet elements.

Based on the real life diaries and letters of Erna, a young woman separated from her husband in the brutal pogrom and sent to a gulag, In the Crosswind is the remarkable, genre-breaking directorial debut from young gun Martti Helde. Filmed entirely as a sequence of tableaux vivants – literally "living pictures" – the result is a monumental film as photograph, utilising more than 700 actors to create awe-inspiring recreations of Erna's journey. Four years in the making and shot in lustrous 35mm black and white, In the Crosswind is arthouse filmmaking of the highest order, and marks the emergence of a startling new talent.