Synopsis

Desperate to save her marriage, a woman in China hires a “mistress dispeller” — a growing profession in China’s larger cities — to break up her husband’s affair. The expert, Wang Zhenxi, or “Teacher Wang”, conspires with the woman and her adult children to insinuate herself into their family. She surreptitiously becomes a close confidante of the cheating spouse and his mistress, all part of her intricate master plan to restore the relationship between husband and wife.

With Mistress Dispeller, award-winning filmmaker Elizabeth Lo (Stray) has crafted an enormously fascinating and multi-faceted psychological portrait. From its carefully observed perspective, the film captures both the love triangle’s most private and intimate moments as well as Wang’s skill in slowly drawing out the characters and subtly manipulating their feelings. Mixing extreme closeups with images of China’s urban landscapes, Mistress Dispeller is an absorbing docudrama that lifts the curtain on a rarely seen segment of Chinese bourgeois society.

Synopsis

Anchored by a pair of winning lead performances, this unexpected romance tenderly examines human connection. Mahin, 70, lives alone in Tehran after her husband dies and her daughter moves to Europe. She spends her days in solitary routine, cooking and tending to her backyard garden. Out to tea one afternoon, she catches the eye of an eligible senior bachelor. Inspired to break from her everyday drudgery, she seizes the opportunity to revitalize her love life. What follows is an unpredictable, eventful chronicle of a single unforgettable evening. Bursting with life, this unconventional, at times surreal delight weaves together social critique and light comedy as it reflects on what it means to live as a woman under restrictive social and political circumstances.

Synopsis

On the snowy island of Hokkaido, young Takuya isn’t thrilled about being forced to play ice hockey at school. On the ice, he becomes fascinated with Sakura, a talented figure skater training for an upcoming competition. Her coach sees potential — and perhaps a bit of his younger self — in Takuya, and proposes that he train the two together as an ice dancing duo. As Takuya improves, the two children form a tentative yet harmonious bond, and their skating brings inspiration to all three of them. But as the days get longer, the reality of life outside the rink begins to slip in and melt the harmony between the skating pair and their trainer.

Bathed in soft pastel light and a gentle disposition, My Sunshine explores the questions of burgeoning youth with exquisite subtlety and dreamlike wonder.

Synopsis

Louie Mulgrin is the one who got out of his rural Illinois town, becoming a bestselling novelist and writing searing literary tell-alls about his rustic Midwestern enclave. When Louie, newly engaged and successful, returns home to settle his late father’s affairs, he receives a welcome that’s equal parts admiration and resentment. Is Louie a local hero or an exploitive opportunist, getting rich off the stories of those he was once closest to?

In her accomplished feature debut, Chicago native Kate Cobb crafts a skillful tale that’s tinged with suspense, as Louie revisits relationships from his youth: a resentful best friend, an ex-girlfriend, a bully turned local cop. As he gets sucked deeper into the past, he must come to grips with what he’s done to get ahead in the present — and his loosening grip on reality. Shot in and around Dekalb, IL, Okie is an absorbing and complex dramatic thriller about the delicate balance between ambition and loyalty.

Synopsis

On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across her uncle’s dead body. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.

Blending dark comedy with poetic realism, Nyoni critiques the traditional expectation to bury pain with the dead as a family of women refuses to feign grief. Featuring a striking visual style and haunting sound design, the film culminates in a defiant protest against silence and denial, suggesting that memory and truth will always endure.