Alissa Simon

More akin to European art films than to American indies, “Palace” prioritizes mood over plot. Tsang allows her experienced actors plenty of breathing space to convey the melancholy of their existence in situations where dreams are more likely to be deferred than to come true, but are necessary nevertheless.

Being Maria is a flawed but fascinating look at the turbulent life of actor Maria Schneider.

The best that can be said for Robichaud’s film is that her two leads, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman and Laurence Leboeuf, give committed performances

With the epic, primal beauty of its remote location, Folktales scores high on visual aesthetics, but rates lower on actual content, as the youth characters aren’t as fully-fledged as one could wish and the school experience is not enough of a trial to provide real drama.

What’s missing, however, is a clear picture of where the apparently vulnerable Hilu lives, how he has supported himself and what has happened to his family.

Audiences open to a different sort of world cinema that repays careful attention should find it a stimulating and imaginative work.

While the multiple ellipses may annoy the more narratively-driven viewer, others will thrill to the mood Ayub creates and the way she plays with audience expectations.

Despite being a tad too long and a trifle repetitive, the documentary essay “Confessions of a Good Samaritan” from American helmer Penny Lane is a thought-provoking personal investigation into a subject rarely examined: the nature of altruism.

This intelligent, sensitive treatment of the rarely seen, everyday lives of young Palestinian citizens of Israel marks tyro feature writer-director Firas Khoury as a talent to watch.

If there is any one takeaway from the film, it’s the importance of family attachments and the succor they provide.

With My Love Affair with Marriage, animator Signe Baumane creates another dense personal narrative that expresses complicated concepts and ideas in images.

From the exuberant credits and opening sequence through to the end, Tiger Stripes is the work of a confident new talent whose next work will be eagerly awaited.

In addition to sterling work by the three young principals, Ian Hart gives a standout performance as the British High Commissioner’s ubiquitous righthand man, offering a supercilious, world-weary gravitas that seemingly epitomizes the official British attitude to the Mandate.

Although the film as a whole struggles to match the poignancy of its finale . . . it nevertheless serves as an urgent reminder of the importance of individual action at a time when the world refugee crisis is at a scale not seen since the Second World War.

While Spall looks like he is having fun launching some clandestine military tactics, the comely Rumpf, known for her fierce work in French and German films such as “Raw,” “Tiger Girl” and “Soul of a Beast” is rather underserved here. But on the bright side, the part at least proves that she speaks fluent English and that the camera loves her no matter what she has on.

Based on helmer-writer Orit Fouks Rotem’s experience as a teacher and the real women she encountered, the film is full of life, love, humor and authenticity without being didactic. At the same time, it cleverly questions the ethics and responsibility of filmmaking.

An involving adaptation of Yasmina Khadra’s elegant literary fiction.

Its consideration of how storytelling and visual images can be weaponized makes it a tale with great resonance for these times.

Stigter’s method is simultaneously creative and forensic, but never sentimental. Working with a digitized copy that bears the blemishes left by the deterioration of the original celluloid, she conjures up exactly what she declares in the subtitle: a lengthening.

Although the various episodes don’t quite add up to a strong narrative whole, they do gain extra resonance from current events in this troubled region.

The strong subject matter as well as the eponymous subject’s storied life makes one wish for a longer running time than 72 minutes.

The result of long years of research, Love It Was Not is remarkable not only for its unusual central story and unique creative execution, but also for its extensive eyewitness testimonies.

[A] neatly observed, rueful Israeli dramedy.

With its glittering black-and-white cinematography, immersive sound design, eerie score and creepy reveal, the film taps into something primal and chilling, with the taut first third particularly strong. But the narrative’s momentum and clarity dissipate in the middle and final sections even as the visuals continue to impress. Still, the boldly inventive Scales marks Ameen as a talent to watch.

The tender screenplay by Boris Frumin captures characters living in the new world in much the same fashion as they did in the old. It also offers a touching showcase for Levan Tediashvili, a non-professional actor and real-life wrestler.

Once again showing a keen eye for detail, Hákonarson naturalistically presents the rigors of farm work, the plainness of his solitary protagonists’ lives and their affection for their cows.

Chen’s delicate, nuanced portrait of the heartbreaks afflicting a dedicated schoolteacher and dutiful wife is suffused with love and humor, and directed with striking maturity and restraint.

It’s an engaging, mostly well-acted tale, full of surprising twists, even if some seem a bit too on the nose.