The Whistlers

The Whistlers (La Gomera, 2019) is a Romanian crime thriller you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Corneliu Porumboiu and selected for the Cannes main competition. Corrupt Bucharest detective Cristi, played by Vlad Ivanov, falls for Gilda — a woman who plays everyone — and agrees to spring a shady businessman from prison in exchange for his help.

There is a catch. He has to travel to the Canary Island of La Gomera and learn Silbo Gomero, an ancient whistled language that the local criminal network retooled as a way to talk without phone records. No words, just pitch and distance. His own internal affairs unit is tailing him the whole time. As the tagline puts it: loyalty is not their language — and the film means that about all of them, not just the criminals. Stream The Whistlers online on iFILM.