There’s something strangely beautiful about short filmmaker Elizabeth Lo’s concise, allegorical debut feature documentary, which starts off as a fly-on-the-fur exploration of Istanbul’s stray dog epidemic and becomes a lament about the difficulties of finding somewhere to belong in an increasingly fractured, and fractious, world.

A very basic formula, executed in bare-bones fashion, works a treat because this set of interviews with Brian De Palma on his life and films is so revealing, and entertaining, that little is needed here other than the man, his opinions and some telling illustrations.

The heartbreaking plunge into sisterhood and grief that is His Three Daughters is an intensely composed elegy about the devastating effect of saying goodbye to a parent.

An almost unbearably-tense, no-holds-barred drive through the nightmare of domestic terrorism, Custody is a can’t-look-away hybrid of gruelling reality and heightened cinematic technique. The mix is jarring, as intended, and this wrenching, heart-stopping film illustrates domestic violence and obsession in a way that makes the fear real.

The culturally specific elements that Iran-born, British-based first time writer-director Babak Anvari brings to the picture makes this a distinctive spin on a familiar premise.

The Forbidden Room is a tour de force that takes Maddin’s ambition through a maze of magical melodrama.

What’s most interesting, although it gets slightly buried under a few too many almost identical musical performances, is the film’s account of the fractious symbiosis of the guru-disciple relationship.

The Latasters rarely put a foot wrong - from their static opening shot in the town of Hapert to the final frames of Miss Kiet in her classroom, this is a beautifully-judged piece.

There’s a discourse going on here about family and memory, about what we lose if we turn ourselves into work machines who can “pull a 48” (go for 48 hours without sleep) that leeches subtly into the fabric of Kreutzer’s psycho-drama, buoyed by a fine use of setting, camera focus and colour.

Farsi’s film now stands as a powerful memorial to someone who was both ordinary and extraordinary.

There’s a lightness of touch to the performances, with Silver encouraging his actors to improvise on-set. Events may have made Ben something of a sadsack, but Schwartzman ensures there is still a glimmer in his eye, a hint that his lust for life is simply dormant.

The poignancy and low-key desperation of the situation in which the men find themselves is balanced by the film’s warmth and gentle humour. In a market crowded with migrant stories, this is something special.

The film is a unique, albeit rarefied example of hybrid cinema that reveals emotional truths through staged reality.

Visually glorious, frequently very funny and genuinely profound, this is a picture which cries out to be seen on the big screen.

While there is no doubting the filmmakers’ admirably humanistic and progressive intentions, however, the picture itself somehow ends up less than the sum of its often-impressive parts.

Expertly paced, Glory builds to a cleverly staged off-camera climax that perfectly caps everything that has gone before.

[Teng] certainly succeeds in creating an impassioned triple profile of the men who are, if anything, increasingly determined to make a difference for the civilians and medics of Gaza, while viscerally bringing home the extent of the brutal tragedy on the ground.

It’s clear that waters need to be calmed or someone will be hurt, but The Librarians also shows that won’t happen unless people stand up and take action. So it’s a call to arms, then. But, be warned: a horror story too.

The Perfect Neighbor’s sombrely objective approach invites audiences to discover how this tragedy unfolded and speculate what, if anything, could have prevented it.

Kwedar never denies the harsh realities of the penitentiary system but, by preferring an ultimately hopeful tone, he eventually falls victim to some of the tropes of the prison drama which his thoughtful picture had, until that point, mostly sidestepped.

Ultimately, Chernov’s film is a compelling record of senseless destruction and death, and a salute to the enduring resilience of a people who refuse to surrender their home.

Turning Red is often very funny thanks to the fact that Shi lets her main character be smart and three-dimensional — the filmmaker doesn’t talk down to her adolescent audience by burdening the script with juvenile jokes.

Better Days may slide into somewhat hollow artfulness, but it’s hard not to be moved by its genuine concerns.

In its own rather clunky way, the film strikes a blow for feminism in central Africa, and Amina, who strikes several literal blows on the man who impregnated her daughter, ends the film unexpectedly empowered by the experience.

Office is first and foremost about enjoying cinema’s capacity to entertain and have fun, which Johnnie To certainly seems to have had himself in making it.

Loznitsa creates a fascinating and quietly devastating chronicle of invasion, occupation and slaughter. As ever, the Ukrainian director doesn’t labour his film with voiceover or overt authorial steers. Yet this is close to home, and it’s impossible not to feel that he’s holding his country to account; for while this was a Nazi extermination, it came with a degree of collusion.

With a terse 85-minute running time, The Guilty illustrates Möller’s confidence with the craft of film-making.

Huezo’s picture, which is loosely adapted from a novel by Jennifer Climent, is distinctive in its child’s-eye-view of this most abnormal of normalities.