Limbo brings two such people together, people with pasts who meet one another while they are in the midst of reinventing themselves. David Strathairn is Joe Gastineau, an Alaskan who has been haunted by a boating accident in which two people died 25 years ago.

He meets up with Donna De Angelo (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a drifter who has just arrived in Alaska and is making a living singing in nightclubs, hotels and on cruise ships. Donna also has a daughter, Noelle (19-year-old Vanessa Martinez, who played a small role in Sayles' Lone Star). As in Sayles' previous films - Brother From Another Planet, Matewan, Passion Fish and Lone Star - location plays a major role too, and the wide open spaces of Alaska become a major part of the drama.

"I think this is a place that draws things out of you that other places don't," says Sayles. "Twenty minutes from the state capital building, you're in wilderness. You have to worry about bears. You have to worry about drowning. You have to worry about weather conditions that can kill you. There are many people here who make their living facing these elements."

Given his predilection for eclectic locations, gaining the support of the local community is always vital to a film-maker like Sayles. To establish a relationship with the people of Juneau, where most of Limbo was shot, the film-makers organised a benefit screening of Men With Guns, and Sayles read some of his short stories at the downtown library.

As a result, politicians, fishermen, pilots, naturalists and restaurateurs all offered their support and advice where it was needed, and their real-life stories were fused in with Sayles' characters. As Strathairn explains, the director likes to give his actors a concise, thorough back-story for the people they portray.

"I was presented with Joe Gastineau as a fully formed individual before I even stepped in," says Straithairn, "but when I got to Alaska - which was only a few days before we started filming - I discovered that Joe was extracted from the people I started meeting here. People who live here are ambassadors for this place, and that sense of connection with one's environment is also a key to Joe Gastineau, I think.

"There's also an element of willingness to help out - strangers, friends, neighbours - that plays a big part in Joe's character. He's more than a 'man Friday' for Donna and Noelle when they all get stranded. He also has a real gentle, subtle, unconscious way of helping them reckon with each other. And that's something I've found in many people here." Jeffrey R Sipe