Encounters

The near and present danger of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon is the nerve-wracking backdrop to this expertly directed coming-of-age tale, centred on one boy’s all-consuming crush amidst the encroachment of war.

Racial and psychological tensions, claustrophobically observed in both the workplace and at home, come to a head in Visar Morina’s masterfully directed thriller about one man’s identity crisis as a foreigner in Germany.

After being scammed into bankruptcy, a community of working-class Argentines band together to devise the ultimate payback – an elaborate money heist inspired by the movies – in Sebastián Borensztein’s winning underdog comedy.

A box office behemoth in its homeland and a daring breakthrough for its 30-year-old director Saeed Roustayi, this visceral policer tackles the maelstrom of Iran’s war on drugs through propulsive action and real political bite.

Exciting young director Mees Peijnenburg and ace cinematographer Jasper Wolf (Monos; Instinct, NZIFF20) immerse us in the gritty world of a trio of disadvantaged Dutch youths en route to Marseille, where either hope or failure awaits.

Somehow both thoughtful and thrilling, Laotian-American filmmaker Mattie Do’s ghostly time-travel tale unravels into unexpected places, blending intimate drama with tense horror and sci-fi genre elements.

A bumbling thief plots to infiltrate a mausoleum built inexplicably on top of his buried loot in Alaa Eddine Aljem’s delightful, deadpan tale of spirituality and greed in rural Morocco.

Personal, cultural and imagined fears are brought to the scenic surface of Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s superb new film, about a young woman navigating the customs and language of a foreign country while on assignment there as the host of a TV show.