Cargo

• 2009
• 1 hr 47 mins
• Suspense, Science Fiction
• NR

• Watchlist

A woman traveling through deep space discovers a secret with deadly implications in this Swiss sci-fi drama. It's the year 2267, and Earth's environment is near the point of total collapse. Many have fled the Earth to live on Rhea, a beautiful planet with an atmosphere and ecosystem similar to our own, but it's in a distant solar system and travel there is expensive. Laura Portmann (Anna-Katharina Schwabroh) is a doctor trying to raise the money to relocate to Rhea, where her sister is already living; she takes a job with Kuiper Enterprises aboard the Kassandra, a battered space freighter making a run to a far away space station. It takes eight years to travel from Earth to the space station, and most of the crew spends their time frozen in artificial hibernation, as crewmen taking turns working an eight and a half month shift while conscious. As Portmann watches over the ship alongside security marshal Samuel Decker (Martin Rapold), who protects the ship from technophobic terrorists, she is convinced something is alive and making trouble in the Kassandra's cargo hold, and becomes concerned enough to wake Captain Lacroix (Pierre Semmler) and his men from their artificial slumber. While Lacroix is certain Portmann simply has an overactive imagination, in time it's revealed someone on board the Kassandra possesses a dangerous secret. Cargo was the first feature film from directors Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter; featuring impressive special effects despite a relatively low budget of $4.8 million, Cargo earned enthusiastic review from European sci-fi fans before making its American debut at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival.