DAYBREAK (OM JAG VANDER MIG OM) European Showcase

Winner of the Blue Angel from the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival for the Best European Film and a Silver Bear for the excellent work of the actors, DAYBREAK is an uncomfortably observant,’ always brutally honest drama about 12 people and 24 hours in their rapidly unraveling lives.

Richard is a brilliant heart surgeon whose questionable judgment – carrying on an extramarital affair with his best friend’s wife – loses him both his job and his home. Seeking closure by any means necessary, Anita is strung out and hopelessly embittered three years after her husband abruptly left her for a younger woman. Anders is a workaholic husband and father, whose dubious bricklaying job for an eccentric couple prompts a discomforting re-evaluation of his life’s priorities.

Thanks in large part to its taut pacing, this is an inescapably involving film about the heavy toll life-and its inevitable deceptions-exacts.