07/10/2025 - Miha Hočevar’s feature is an enjoyable and thoroughly contemporary comedy of the defeated, with an unusual Slovenian and Icelandic flavour to it

In Hidden People, Miha Hočevar delivers a tender, offbeat buddy comedy that glides smoothly between absurdity and sincerity, between farce and fairy tale. Screened at the Reykjavík International Film Festival (RIFF), the feature opens on a startling and hilarious image: Guti (Blaž Šef), a Slovenian thirtysomething dreamer, and Sig (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a burly Icelander in his fifties, wake up hugging and handcuffed to each other on a riverbank near Ljubljana. 

Sig is suffering from partial amnesia, his belongings and passport having been stolen by a gang of skinheads. Guti, meanwhile, is trying to rebuild his life on a raft after losing his house to the bank and his marriage to the past. What begins as a surreal encounter quickly turns into a story of mutual rediscovery, in which two men - strangers in every possible sense of the word - forge an unlikely bond as they drift along the murky, literal and metaphorical waters of contemporary Europe.

The odd-couple pairing of Šef and Ólafsson proves unexpectedly inspired. Physically and temperamentally mismatched, the two actors develop a natural, lived-in chemistry that sustains the film’s emotional current. Ólafsson, a familiar face from both Icelandic and international productions (recently seen in the Apple TV+ hit Severance), embodies Sig as a gentle giant - a “bear” of a man, amiable but inwardly broken, numbing his confusion with rounds of beer and good intentions. His performance is suffused with warmth and melancholy, capturing the ache of a man who senses he’s lost something profound yet can’t remember what.

Šef’s Guti, on the other hand, is the archetypal drifter - good-hearted but perpetually off track, a modern Don Quixote who believes in decency even as the world around him grows crueller. His presence and deeds irritate the skinheads and conservative locals, whose xenophobia and aggression inject the story with enough conflict to keep it lively without tipping into grim realism. To some extent, Hočevar quietly crafts an allegory about internal exile and social invisibility. These are Europe’s “internal refugees,” people pushed aside by bureaucracy, ideology or mere indifference.

Tonally, Hidden People balances humour and poignancy with disarming ease. The screenplay, co-written by Hočevar with Srdjan Koljević, is laced with sharp, witty dialogue that often undercuts the sentimentality lurking beneath the surface. There’s an ironic quality throughout - Hočevar affectionately pokes fun at both Slovenia and Iceland, two “small nations” navigating their place in a “big Europe.” The film’s gentle absurdism becomes a means of resilience: laughter as a survival tool.

If there is a minor shortcoming, it lies in the slightly underdeveloped exploration of Sig’s backstory. As his memories resurface, the film hints at emotional depths that are only partially revealed, leaving the viewer curious about who he was before washing up in Slovenia. Still, this elusiveness fits the film’s tone: in a story about reinvention, perhaps it’s enough to know who we become, not who we were.

Ultimately, Hidden People stands as a small but sincere triumph - a comedy of dislocation that never feels forced or schematic. Beneath its simplicity lies a touching reflection on second chances, belonging and the fragile, funny ways people keep each other afloat.

Hidden People was produced by Slovenia’s Vertigo and co-produced by RTV Slovenija and Serbia’s Backroom Productions, in collaboration with Slovenia’s Viba Film Studio.