There are echoes of RAIN MAN in this charming and touching tale of two people, each dysfunctional in very different ways, who learn to transcend their limitations by working together. Arturo (Marchioni) is a celebrated chef whose anger issues have sabotaged his career. Convicted of assault, he is assigned community service in the form of teaching cooking to a group of students with Asperger's Syndrome. One of them, the exceptionally talented Guido (Fedele), enters a Young Tuscan Chef cooking contest, with the reluctant Arturo assigned to be his coach and chaperone. Complicating matters are Guido's awkward entanglement with a pretty contest assistant and Arturo's confrontation with his culinary archrival. Simplicity and integrity are the values endorsed in this tasty concoction whose basic ingredients--humor, sentiment, cuisine, scenery--are not unusual, but achieve excellence by being applied quanto basto ("as much as is needed"). In Italian with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of True Colours. (MR);Director Francesco Falaschi is tentatively scheduled to appear for audience discussion on Thursday.;Immediately following the Closing Night film and program, the audience is invited to a reception in our Gallery/Café generously hosted by the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).;Note: No free passes or blue tickets will be valid for the closing night screening.

A town's once-thriving industries have been decimated by outsourcing, so the civic leaders sponsor a promotional film to lure a German megastore chain. When local talent is found lacking, they hire a well-known documentary filmmaker; meanwhile, two high-spirited high- school girls--Iraqi immigrant Aida (Aldoujaili) and Turkish immigrant Dana (Aliadotter)--set out to make their own, unauthorized version. The polished official version depicts a picture-postcard paradise devoid of non-white faces, while the teenagers' rough-edged report uncovers anxieties about immigration, non-union labor, and threatened local businesses. Written by leading Swedish author and activist Jonas Hassan Khemiri, AMATEURS uses raucous comedy and sharply drawn characters to deliver insights on the changing economic and ethnic realities of contemporary Sweden. In Swedish, English, Arabic, Tamil, Kurdish, and Bosnian with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of LevelK. (MR)

The tables are turned in the course of this story of one man’s struggle with accidental fatherhood, when his ex rejects their newborn daughter. Erik (Sagor) is a moody hothead working construction in a neighboring country when he gets a call that former girlfriend Moonika (Lass), who had not revealed her pregnancy, is now in labor with his child. Director Trishkina- Vanhatalo avoids sentimentality and picture-perfect solutions, even as Erik strikes up a liaison with an attractive and equally single mother. Parenthood doesn’t come easy for a man who is learning how to grow up from a baby, but when an affluent and newly married Moonika shows up three years later demanding her daughter, he is ready to fight. Estonia’s submission for Oscar consideration. In Estonian with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of Allfilm. (BS)

John Curry revolutionized male figure-skating, but his ambitions reached far beyond that, and his personal story has a complexity deeper and darker than athletic triumphs. Throughout his life, he was haunted by memories of his homophobic father, who forbade him from pursuing a childhood love of ballet but allowed ice-skating because it was a sport. Curry proceeded to combine athleticism and balletic grace in a way that changed the sport forever. Badgered by the press after his 1976 Olympic gold medal performance, he publicly acknowledged his homosexuality at a time when it was still not fully legalized in
Britain, just as he would later openly discuss his HIV status at a time when the disease was widely stigmatized. Curry left athletic competition to pursue his dream of raising ice-dancing to a new level of artistry and personal expression, with acclaimed, unprecedented performances at Royal Albert Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. THE ICE KING devotes considerable time to this neglected but crucial area of Curry's career, illustrated with rare, newly discovered footage of enthralling performances, while his personal letters, beautifully read by actor Freddie Fox, reveal the tender, courageous, and tormented man behind the mesmerizing performer. In English. ProRes digital. Courtesy of Film Movement. (MR)

Oscar-winning director Sorrentino (THE GREAT BEAUTY) dives into a fictional profile of notorious former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with relish, aided and abetted by his perennial star Toni Servillo (IL DIVO), who revels in the role of the flamboyant billionaire politician and media tycoon. The garish opulence of the surroundings and vulgar gilt-edged tastes of this vote-getting idol of the economically depressed classes strikes an eerily familiar tone in our time, as Sorrentino paints a tawdry picture of massive corruption, bribery, drugs, and prostitution, involving a scheming but insignificant businessman who seeks the big man’s favor. Servillo has never been more expansive or daring than in this story that combines the extremes of capricious, all-encompassing power in the public sphere with the maudlin spectacle of a marriage on the rocks in private. Sorrentino’s vision is positively post-Felliniesque, with set pieces on a grand scale, and babes, babes, babes. In Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of IFC Films. (BS)

Like a farcical French twist on A STAR IS BORN, this movieland meta-comedy combines show-biz satire with a hilarious yet harrowing take on the extremes to which male insecurity can go. Director-star Canet (TELL NO ONE, JOYEUX NOEL, CEZANNE ET MOI), playing a presumably more neurotic version of himself, suffers a midlife crisis when he is cast as the father of an up-and-coming young hottie who tells him that her generation no longer finds him "rock 'n roll." It doesn't help that his real-life partner Marion Cotillard (also playing herself) is eclipsing him in popularity. Canet takes to hanging out with a younger crowd and trying to bad-boy up his mild-mannered image ("I'm the world's ideal son-in-law," he complains), then goes off the deep end with a drastic Botox-and-steroids makeover. Filled with insider jokes and cameos (Johnny Hallyday, Yves Attal, Ben Foster), ROCK 'N ROLL is bracingly and gleefully cynical--there is no moral, nobody learns any lessons, and the only cure for excess seems to be more excess. In French with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of The Festival Agency. (MR)

A tale of awakening love outside the norms of a traditional community is the subject of Echevarria's lively first feature. Carmen (Rodríguez) and Lola (Romero) are teenagers in Madrid's Roma (aka gypsy) community, where women are expected to marry early and bear many children. The brash, busty Carmen has no problems with that, and she is eagerly preparing for her upcoming wedding. Then she comes under the lovestruck gaze of Lola, a rebellious graffiti artist who is beginning to explore her lesbian leanings. At first Carmen is horrified by Lola's advances, then curious, then openly affectionate to a dangerous extent. Director Echevarria steeps her romantic tale in the customs of Roma life, from the bustling open-air market to revival-like church services, all richly flavored with driving, flamenco-style music. Winner of the 2019 Goya Award for Best New Director. In Spanish with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of Latido Films. (MR)

This documentary resonates eerily in our time, as director Beckermann (THE DREAMED ONES, ZORRO’S BAR MITZVAH) examines how an Austrian presidential campaign tore the lid off the darker aspects of candidate Kurt Waldheim’s past, and emboldened neo-Nazis and racists to speak and act openly. Waldheim’s image as a benevolent humanitarian, cultivated during his stint as U.N. Secretary-General, was dashed when new, damning details about his possible administrative role in massacres while he served in Nazi uniform surfaced just as he launched his 1986 bid for Austria’s presidency. Beckermann assembles an eye-opening history of the campaign from archival film and her own footage shot during street demonstrations, when long-hidden anti-Semitic sympathies emerge with a vengeance, giving the lie to Austria’s claim to have been “Hitler’s first victim.” Winner of Best Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival, and Austria’s submission for Oscar consideration. DCP digital. In German, English, and French with English subtitles. Courtesy of Menemsha Films. (BS)

This parallel sequel to the popular documentary MISS KIET’S CHILDREN revisits an elementary school classroom for immigrant children who do not yet speak Dutch, to focus on Branche, one irrepressible Macedonian boy as he grapples with a new country, new language, and new companions. On the first day of school, frightened Branche wails inconsolably for his dad, but it’s not many weeks before this charmer, popular with the little girls, is the class clown with an aggressive streak when it comes to bonding with others. Adults are largely absent from this portrait. The Latasters keep the camera at child height for an exceptionally intimate understanding of the actions and reactions of their young subjects as they learn from each other, and Branche becomes a new little man, negotiating friendship, change, and social boundaries. In Dutch with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of Lataster & Films. (BS)

Based on a graphic novel by Fermin Solis, this unique animated feature focuses on a turning point in the career of the great Spanish-born director Luis Buñuel. With his career at a standstill due to the notoriety of his early surrealist classics, Buñuel sets out in 1932 with three of his leftist/anarchist friends to make LAS HURDES, a bracingly confrontational documentary set in an extremely backward and impoverished region of Spain. Using a style of 2-D animation that emphasizes facial expression over fluidity of movement, director Simó draws a complex portrait of Buñuel--haunted by nightmares and childhood memories of his disapproving father, capable of bizarre and callous behavior, but also finding the compassion and humanity that will fuel his growth as an artist. Note: Contains depictions of cruelty to animals. In Spanish and French with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of GKids. (MR)

Shaggy Greek Cypriot musician Yiannis (Bousdoukos of SOUL KITCHEN) sees his life go to the dogs only three days before he plans to emigrate, when his fluffy pup Jimi does a runner, heading straight across the armed border into the Turkish side of the Cypriot capital Nicosia. What can his frantic owner do but follow? This comedy with a spoofy, easy-going political edge is a doggone adventure in cross-border relations, with some romance for good measure, when Yiannis’s ex Kika (Papadopoulou), Jimi’s former owner, joins the hunt. Yiannis finds his childhood home now occupied by Turkish settler Hasan (Al), who is cajoled into helping to transport the dog back onto the Greek side with the services of a sinister smuggler. In Greek, English, and Turkish with English subtitles. ProRes digital widescreen. Courtesy of The Match Factory. (BS)

Arūnas Matelis makes lyrical, transcendent documentaries on endurance, pain, and unsung courage. BEFORE FLYING BACK TO EARTH, which played at the 2007 CEUFF, was Lithuania's first-ever submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Now Matelis returns with his first film in twelve years, once again Lithuania's official Oscar submission. The subject of WONDERFUL LOSERS is Italy's grueling Giro d'Italia bicycle race, but the film is not concerned with winners and results. Instead, it goes behind the scenes to focus on those who toil without recognition: gregarios (aka domestiques) who sacrifice individual glory for the sake of their teammates; doctors who tend to injured cyclists on-the-fly, through the windows of moving ambulances; and crashed cyclists left in the wake of the race to contemplate uncertain futures. Filmed over a period of eight years, with its cameras in the midst of the high-speed action, WONDERFUL LOSERS is an amazing technical accomplishment and an exhilarating tribute to the human spirit. In Italian, English, and Lithuanian with English subtitles. ProRes digital. Courtesy of Studio Nominum. (MR)

This dramatized chronicle of the interrogations of high-level Nazis including Hermann Göring, Karl Dönitz, Wilhelm Keitel, and scores more, as they were held by the U.S. Army at a secret Luxembourg prison, code-name Ashcan, prior to the Nuremberg trials, is a gripping blend of dialogue created from real transcripts and artful characterizations. Writer/director Perelsztejn creates the film from the rehearsals of his own stage play, as actors come to grips with characters that range from defiant to self-pitying to sly and deceptively compliant. The narrative foregrounds the encounters of interrogator John Dolibois, a green young G.I. of Luxembourg descent, selected for the work owing to his proficiency in German. In German, French, and English with English subtitles. ProRes digital. Courtesy of Films de la Mémoire. (BS)

This twisty diversion opens with Abel (Garrel), a thirtysomething journalist, absorbing a series of gut-punches: His long-term girlfriend Marianne (Casta) announces that she's pregnant...by his best friend Paul…and they're getting married in a few days. Eight years later, following Paul's death, Abel and Marianne hook up again, but two new characters complicate the picture: Marianne's son Joseph, who confides to Abel that Marianne murdered Paul, and Paul's now- grown kid sister Eve (Depp), who has nurtured a lifelong crush on Abel and will stop a nothing to win him away from Marianne. Scripted by the indefatigable Jean-Claude Carrière (AT ETERNITY'S GATE, numerous Buñuel classics), actor Garrel's second film as director displays an appreciation for the perversities of human nature and a deft juggling of tones, as the film walks a tightrope between rom-com, film noir, and black comedy. In French with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of Kino Lorber Films. (MR)

LOVE AND BULLETS dominated Italy's Oscar-equivalent Donatello awards, racking up 16 nominations and five wins (including Best Film). The Manetti Bros. both satirize and reinvigorate the recent vogue for films about the Naples-based Camorra crime organization by turning their gangland saga into a cheeky, action-packed musical, complete with singing corpses and songs belted out amid raging gunfire. After narrowly escaping assassination, a crime boss decides to fake his own death, and he sends his handsome hit man Ciro (Morelli) to rub out the hospital nurse Fatima (Rossi) who knows he's still alive. But love steps in when Ciro and Fatima recognize each other as childhood sweethearts, and their rekindled romance puts them in the crosshairs of a small army of Camorra gunmen. The clever and energetic musical numbers include a hospital-set reworking of Giorgio Moroder's FLASHDANCE anthem "What a Feeling" and a tour group's paean to the pleasures of being pickpocketed in the heart of the Camorra district ("the ultimate touristic experience"). In Italian and Neapolitan dialect with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of MHZ Networks. (MR)

Critic and documentarian Mark Cousins uses the discovery of a trove of unseen paintings and sketches by Orson Welles as the backbone for a journey through Welles’s life and filmography. Cousins begins with Welles’s time as a drawing student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, speculating on how his hours spent surrounded by classical paintings and sculptures later influenced the revolutionary compositional sense he brought to cinema, before moving freely through Welles’s career to find new connections and echoes between his films, tastes, politics, and relationships. Narrated with an inviting candor by Cousins himself as a direct appeal to the master filmmaker, performer, magician, and raconteur, THE EYES OF ORSON WELLES brings Welles’s towering personality into focus and provides a rare glimpse at an artist whose talents extended beyond the cinema. In English. DCP digital. Courtesy of Janus Films. (Cameron Worden)

Animation dovetails powerfully with live-action footage in this personal chronicle of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski’s 1975 Angolan civil war experiences, in a film of unsettling immediacy that critics have compared with WALTZ WITH BASHIR. With the stark emphasis of a graphic novel, the filmmakers depict a two-fisted animated Kapuscinski fearlessly heading into the thick of the fighting, following his nose in search of the alleged Che Guevara of Angola, and being saved from death by a female guerilla (Lillie Flynn). The story plunges into increasingly surreal moral complexity with the depiction of the aftermath of a massacre with the alternating views of actual film footage, and the recollections of Kapuscinski (Kerry Shale), and fellow journalist Artur (Daniel Flynn). In English, Portuguese, Polish, and Spanish with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of GKids. (BS)

After capturing his dysfunctional family in art exhibitions, documentaries, and photo books, acclaimed artist Richard Billingham makes his narrative feature debut with this autobiographical look at life on the dole in Thatcher-era England. Billingham's father Ray gives the film its through line, first glimpsed separated from Billingham's mother Liz and alone in a squalid bedroom, where he spends his days reminiscing and drinking copious amounts of suspicious-looking home brew. From here, RAY & LIZ cuts between Ray's later days in an alcoholic stupor and a pair of vignettes set in the 1980s: one in which Billingham's younger brother Jason is left in the care of a mentally impaired uncle, and another in which Jason disappears for several days without either of his cash-strapped parents noticing. Meticulously recreating his family's abodes and shooting on richly textured 16mm film, Billingham evokes his often-tumultuous upbringing with both unsparingly bleak humor and surprisingly wistful tenderness, crafting an evocation of bygone youth fit to slot alongside the nostalgic visions of Terence Davies. In English. DCP digital. Courtesy of KimStim. (Cameron Worden)

This intriguing first feature interweaves three storylines--in order of appearance, The Ex-Wife, The Wife, and The Girlfriend. Ex-wife Vera struggles to raise two children on a meager income. Wife and new mother Anna suffers her husband's flirtations. Girlfriend Karla is at the stage where she and her boyfriend can still patch things up. The three strands come to a head in parallel party scenes that expose the fault lines in each relationship. Former casting director Wik, whose drolly observant style evokes Roy Andersson and Ruben Östlund, makes effective use of long takes to reveal character through behavioral details rather than plot contrivances. The film's structure suggests that the three woman can be seen as three different stages of a single meta-relationship, and the introduction of the three stories in reverse chronological order suggests an IRREVERSIBLE-like configuration of a bleak future overshadowing a more hopeful beginning. In Swedish with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of the Swedish Film Institute. (MR)

This timely documentary explores the phenomenon that is Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous Italian author whose novels (including "My Brilliant Friend," recently adapted into a hit HBO series), combining literary sophistication with can't-put-it-down readability, have sold millions of copies, gained critical acclaim, and earned the cult-like devotion of fans around the world. The author, who fiercely and famously guards her anonymity, does not appear in the film, although there are voiced excerpts from her letters and interviews. Rather than prying into the mystery of Ms. Ferrante's identity, the film centers on the books themselves and the factors that make them so compelling, such as their unique perspective on female friendship and the vivid textures of their Neapolitan settings. Among the roster of admirers and literary insiders who appear in the film are novelists Elizabeth Strout and Jonathan Franzen, film-adaptation directors Roberto Faenza and Mario Martone, and translator Ann Goldstein, who, in the absence of the author herself, has become something of a celebrity. In Italian and English with English subtitles. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment LLC. DCP digital. (MR)

This unruly Cold War comedy leaves political correctness in the dust as its hero, a Hungarian gypsy crop-duster pilot named Lajkó (Keresztes), reaches for the stars. From scatological humor (a rocket-propelled outhouse blasting off with Lajkó’s unlucky mother in driver’s seat, so to speak) to sex jokes and black humor (bushy-eyebrowed Leonid Brezhnev on the make amid a pack of elderly generals and a hick-town commissar), this is a knee-slapper with a bitter satirical undercurrent. Obsessed with space flight since childhood, Lajkó gets his wish when his torture by Russian agents reveals a high tolerance for pain. Sent to the space program, he discovers that he and his fellow astronaut trainees, including Helga, an ex-Nazi who hates gypsies, were selected because they are expendable. No test candidate has survived the ordeal so far. Lajkó plans to beat the odds with the help of his mother’s ghost up in the sky, but the Russians have other plans for the official honor of first man in space. In Hungarian, Russian, and German with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of HNFF World Sales. (BS)

A violent coming of age is complicated by sexual ambiguity and betrayal in Slovenia’s first gay-themed film. A bedroom tryst at a teen drinking party ends in charges filed when eighteen-year-old Andrej (a terrific, smoking-hot Zemljic) beats up the girl he has been unable to satisfy, and is sentenced to a work-release detention center. At first shunned by the center’s controlling gang of thugs, he soon falls in with their leader Zele (Šturbej), who uses Andrej’s secret attraction to him as leverage in shakedown schemes and drug deals. Director Štante plays with the mixed sexual signals given off in this odd-couple pairing, as Zele bestows favors, then taunts his sometime lover with his female conquests. A deadly showdown is in the offing, and Andrej’s identity and soul hang in the balance. In Slovenian with English subtitles. DCP digital. Special advance screening courtesy of Dark Star Pictures. (BS)

A Roaring Thirties spirit has the capital Riga in its grip, and the city’s poor-but-lively artists are steeped in hedonism when aspiring painter Juris (Šelegovskis) steps off a train from the countryside, prepared to find fame and fortune. Director Viduleja blends rivalry and revelry with superb period recreation, in a romantic romp of intrigue and one-upmanship, based on the novel by painter/writer Anslaus Eglitis. A scheming critic takes Juris under his wing, and engineers a face-off with another artist--talentless but dapper socialite Zibeika, whose father has bequeathed his entire estate to the future winner of a painting competition. Juris ekes out a living at the art academy, teaching nude drawing to an all-female class, and many a young lovely has him in her sights. Meanwhile, Zibeika’s intended, a sculptor, may provide serious competition in the realm of romance. In Latvian with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of Film Angels Productions. (BS)

The Cinderella story gets a clever and mildly risqué twist in this fable-like comedy that evokes Jacques Tati in its lack of dialogue and abundance of ingeniously staged visual gags. Nurlan (Manojlovic) is an aging, unmarried train driver who travels the same rural route every day, his passage through a narrow and crowded right-of-way sometimes sweeping up objects that he dutifully returns to their owners. On his last day before retirement, his engine snags a brassiere off a wash line, and Nurlan doggedly sets out to find the damsel whose assets fit the garment. Many try it on, but it's always a case of too much or too little, as Nurlan is driven to devise such ruses as posing as a lingerie salesman and hijacking a mobile breast X-Ray unit. The film's tone is more whimsical than smarmy--Nurlan's quest seems motivated mainly by a sense of duty and a desire to tie up the last loose end from his working life before moving on. Filmed in Azerbaijan by German comedy specialist Helmer (ABSURDISTAN, TUVALU), THE BRA features an international cast that includes Denis Lavant and Paz Vega. No dialogue. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of Pluto Film. (MR)

Comedies don’t come any more hallucinatory or candy-colored than this Cannes prize-winner, especially when a herd of King Kong-size Pekingese puppies swarm the screen in a dreamy pastel haze. Gender-bending wackiness, over-the-top caricatures, and subplots galore inspire delight at every turn. Evil twin sisters that would make Cinderella’s siblings cringe, two lesbians posing as a nun and an orphan boy, and a wild government cloning plot figure in a plan to fleece an innocently dim-witted national hero. Beefcake soccer star Diamantino (Cotta) adopts mute refugee boy Rahim in order to boost his public image after flubbing a kick in the World Cup. The bad guys are off and running to “Make Portugal great again,” and directors Abrantes and Schmidt race from one zany move to the next, fighting evil with the lethally disarming weapons of chubby puppies, a fluffy kitten, and stinging political satire. In Portuguese with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of Kino Lorber Films. (BS)

A teen blows up a mailbox on a dark Athens street, setting off a chain reaction that affects four disparate strangers and causes their lives to intersect in an unholy dance of survival. The seemingly random events of a fatal traffic collision and the loss of a birth certificate in the mailbox ultimately connect Adia, an undocumented Albanian immigrant and her newborn; rebellious rich-girl Lena and her drug-dealing Nigerian boyfriend Manou; and elderly neighborhood busybody Thalia, whose eyes don’t miss a trick. Director Lafi nudges harsher elements of the story toward forgiveness in the face of betrayal, and leaves the impression of a city redeemed by unexpected pockets of compassion. In Greek and Albanian with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. Courtesy of Inkas Films. (BS)

In her directorial debut, actress Davis, playing the lead role of Angèle, takes a stance both satirical and sympathetic toward her problematic protagonist. Red of hair as well as political convictions, Angèle was born too late. An aspiring urban planner, she lives in a perpetual state of indignation that she finds sadly lacking in those around her. Her onetime radical father is too old, her sister too bourgeois, her boyfriend too casual. She starts a political discussion group but becomes discouraged by their lack of conviction. Her mother once marched alongside her father in the front lines of political protest but then gave up, left her family, and moved to the countryside. Angèle hasn't seen her mother in years, but now she seeks her out, hoping to find answers. In French with English subtitles. DCP digital. Courtesy of UniFrance Films and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. (MR)

This trailer is unsubtitled. The version shown at the screenings will be subtitled in English.

This Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner goes where few filmmakers dare to tread, exploring body image, the elusive link between body and soul, and sexuality through the lens of disability, whether psychological or physical. Freely alternating fictional and reenacted sequences with documentary observations, experimental filmmaker Pintilie, a first-time feature director, goes inside the relationships, sexual hang-ups, and physical challenges of three subjects: Laura, a woman who engages both male and female sex workers in order to confront her fear of intimacy; Tómas, a man with a disfiguring skin condition; and Christian, a married man confined to a wheelchair. In no way a clinical study, TOUCH ME NOT is a roughly poetic, confrontational, and frank meditation on what it means to be wholly human. In English and German with English subtitles. DCP digital. Note: Contains nudity and explicit sexual activity. Courtesy of Kino Lorber Films. (BS)

In 1944, Red Army soldiers sweep through a Hungarian farming village and round up Irén (Gera) and the other women, supposedly to work on the wheat harvest in Russia. Instead, they are marched off to a desolate snowbound region to perform hard labor in the coalmines; to be worked to death if it comes to that. Irén’s compassionate impulse to help her weaker companions results only in additional punishment and starvation, until Rajmund (Csányi), a wily male prisoner with a supervisory role in the camp, teaches her the hard rules of survival, trading his own slight mercies for her favors. Director Szász gives this story, based on the book by János Havasi, a more complex twist when a relationship based on an ugly bargain of necessity takes on the new dimension of emotional need and something like love. In Hungarian and Russian with English subtitles. ProRes digital. Courtesy of Service Film Positive KFT. (BS)