The film features Susanne Wolff as Rike, an emergency doctor who is sailing her yacht solo off North Africa when she comes across a boat full of asylum seekers in distress after a storm has damaged their vessel.

For her holiday she decided to sail alone on her twelve-metre long yacht "Asa Gray", on a trip in the footsteps of Charles Darwin from Gibraltar to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.

During her journey off North Africa, she is informed by a container ship passing nearby that she must prepare for a severe storm on her way.

Shocked by this act, she is furious with Kingsley, but notices his despair and calls the coastguard again, claiming that the "Asa Gray" will sink now.

The following night, she approaches the trawler, climbs aboard and finds a number of dead and dying people on the ship.

At dawn, the tenders of a Coast Guard frigate shuttle with the abandoned trawler to rescue the survivors and recover the dead, while radio messages about other ships in distress arrive, each with hundreds of refugees on board.

[2] Styx had its world premiere in the Panorama section at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival on 16 February 2018.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Anchored by powerful work from Susanne Wolff, Styx provocatively depicts mankind at war with itself and the natural world – and argues our best weapon is compassion.