Dutch filmmaker Mees Peijnenburg directs this visual poem that charts the reality of a breakup with raw and heartfelt aplomb. “Most breakups aren’t easy,” says Peijnenburg. “Either you hold onto hope or you cry because things will never be the same.” The viewer never meets the couple at the heart of the story, instead they are decorporialized into text conversations and telephone static. “I wanted to keep the couple anonymous,” says the director, “and open for interpretation so any viewer could place themselves into this situation.”

A cavernous silence, which pervades throughout the entire film, is a poetic trope for the emptiness one feels after a relationship ends. Each frame flickers between multiple naked and destitute couples who stare into a haunted middle distance. “When working on films I try to remove any layers that distract from real emotion,” says the director. “This film captures the vulnerable, daring, brave and electric thrill of all relationships.”

Peijnenburg is one of the hotly-tipped filmmaking talents to come out of the Netherlands and is a Golden Calf (the Dutch Oscars) winner for his 2015 TV Short We Will Never Be Royals. The director has also recently finished production on Paradise Drifters, his first feature film.