SYNOPSIS:

Anna, a recently widowed restaurateur, lives in a wind‑battered coastal town. Since the death of her child, she has not slept, wandering the streets at night like a ghost between flickering lamplight and the glow of televisions. One night, at exactly 2:17 a.m., the entire town collapses into an unnatural sleep. Pedestrians, drivers, bar patrons, everyone, falls, paralyzed and silent. Anna remains awake. At first, she suspects illness or hallucination. But the longer she observes, the stranger things become: The sleepers’ movements are subtly off, almost as if their bodies are enacting gestures not their own. Dreams across the town appear synchronized, and faces shift in micro‑expressions, as though responding to an invisible gaze. Indistinct whispers echo through walls and alleyways, always near, never locatable. Anna begins researching. She learns the town sits atop an ancient ritual site. Prehistoric drawings depict massive, silent entities that can “see” only when human minds are open, that is, asleep. These beings, the Watchers, are not malicious by human standards; they seek understanding, absorbing consciousness itself. As nights continue, Anna senses the Watchers even while awake. Walls subtly warp. Floors creak like breathing. Shadows no longer align naturally. Dreams bleed into reality: bodies appear to float in streets, faces are familiar yet wrong, voices whisper her name from inside her apartment. The Watchers do not kill immediately, but their observation is corrosive. Memories fade. Emotions distort. Sleepers who fall too deeply become… something else. Anna attempts to warn the town, but no one remembers her words. The climax: Anna sees her child in a dream, calm and smiling, but the eyes are not their own. She realizes that what humans think of as “rest” is actually a passage through which these entities shape reality. Her grief and wakefulness make her visible to them. Each night, their attention presses upon her, waiting until her essence is ready to be “consumed” or transformed. In the final sequence: Anna accepts her role as guardian. She stays awake to protect those who sleep. The screen fills with the silent city, punctuated only by the breaths of thousands of unconscious bodies. She grows old, eyes vigilant but empty. When she finally dies, the camera rises above the town: the night falls for everyone, and for the first time, the collective sleep carries a subtle shiver, the invisible presence moving, watching, ready to begin again elsewhere.