New Directors Competition

Two young queer Moroccans seek refuge and human connection as they wait at a luxury villa for a wealthy American who is nowhere to be found.

A Syrian exile in France hunts the man responsible for torturing him — and countless other political prisoners — in a tension-filled game of cat and mouse.

When a young girl falls ill with a strange fever, she is sent to the foot of her island’s volcano, where she encounters a surreal world between dreams and reality.

A minor car accident triggers a cascading chain of events exposing lies and unspoken truths in this panoramic portrait of a patriarchal society.

Melrick, 13, summers with his grandmother in French Guiana. After discovering his family’s tragic past, he searches for ways to connect to his history.

Widowed Mahin, 70, lives alone in Tehran. Out to tea one afternoon, she’s inspired to break from her routine and revitalize her love life.

In need of a “cultured boyfriend”? A “perfect son”? Matthias is available for rent in this incisive comedy that levels up the “rent-a” genre.

Seen through the eyes of 7-year-old Rita, a mother (Paz Vega) struggles to protect her children in this poignant look at innocence and violence in the home.

In a small industrial town, two 13-year-old girls enroll in a modeling school where they are confronted with extreme, impossible beauty standards.

Whiplash meets Grey’s Anatomy in this intense psychological drama about an ambitious Korean-American resident training under a notorious heart surgeon.

The humble dreams of a group of Somali misfits form the backbone of this gentle, gorgeously realized ode to the persistence of life in the face of death.

An isolated village in northern Tunisia is beset by strange events when matriarch Aicha’s son returns from war with a mysterious pregnant bride.