Director: Anthony Chen
Two strangers, both far from anywhere they can call safe, cross paths on a sun-bleached Greek island and slowly let each other in.
What is Drift about?
Jacqueline has fled a country torn apart by war and washed up on a Greek island with almost nothing to her name, scraping by on the margins of a tourist economy she doesn't belong to. A local tour guide, himself adrift and without much direction, notices her and the two begin an uneasy, tentative connection. Neither is looking for rescue exactly, but each finds something steadying in the other's company as the film moves quietly between present-day encounters and glimpses of the life Jacqueline left behind. Anthony Chen directs this 2024 drama, keeping the focus tight on two people learning to trust again rather than on plot mechanics.
Cast & crew
Cynthia Erivo plays Jacqueline with a controlled, watchful stillness that carries much of the film's emotional weight. Alia Shawkat appears as a fellow traveler on the island, while Ibrahima Ba plays the tour guide whose path crosses hers. Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba, and Vincent Vermignon round out the supporting cast across the island's small, transient community.
Context & significance
Drift is a co-production spanning France, Greece, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and its Mediterranean setting is used less as postcard scenery than as a holding pattern for people who can't yet go home. The film sits in the tradition of quiet character dramas about displacement, favoring restrained performances and fragmented memory over exposition. Anthony Chen's direction leans on visual texture and silence, letting the audience piece together Jacqueline's past gradually rather than through a single explanatory scene.
Where & how to watch
Drift streams on K-Time with a free account login, and reading this page requires no sign-in at all. The platform is built around a Farsi-language experience for the Iranian diaspora, while the film itself plays in its original English-language audio.