Truck Driver and Incinerator join the Proxima Competition

The penultimate pair of Proxima Competition titles are two distinctive films shaped by silence and an unhurried rhythm. Both screen at the Karlovy Vary Theatre and explore solitude, though from very different perspectives. The Spanish-Argentinian Truck Driver rolls in at 4 p.m. with a poignant portrait of longing for home, while Japan’s Incinerator, screening at 7 p.m., might just convince you that throwing things into a fire can be a surprisingly good idea.

Even though rest breaks and roadside stops are an inseparable part of a truck driver’s working life, cinema has largely overlooked them. Instead, it has consigned them to relentless road movies that never seem to stop moving. Director Francisco Marise does the opposite, allowing these towering, steam-breathing machines a rare moment of stillness.

His collective portrait of transport workers – especially when they are at rest – offers an intimate glimpse into lives defined by solitude, where the longing for loved ones and human connection must coexist with the isolation of a truck cab that often feels more like a spacecraft. What begins as the deceptively simple question of what happens when the engine cools and the road falls asleep gradually takes on an almost spiritual dimension. What are these truckers running away from? And are they running at all? Blending documentary observation with staged scenes, the film invites its subjects to perform versions of themselves. It is precisely within this space between reality and performance that it searches for truth. The result is an elusive, almost metaphysical meditation on family relationships strained by life on the road.

The Incinerator transports audiences from the soothing melancholy of life on the road straight into the furnace. Based on the eponymous short story by one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary writers, Kaori Ekuni, the film follows a ten-year-old girl who endures relentless bullying at school. Her only real solace comes from throwing objects into the school incinerator.

This delicately observed portrait of childhood takes on an even more mysterious quality when she becomes fascinated by an enigmatic young man who performs shadow theatre. Its defiantly unconventional visual language dissolves the boundaries of a child’s imagination, revealing the expressive power of silence. In Incinerator, Shuntaro Uchida explores what lies between shadow and light.