Cast: Radhika Apte, Ashok Pathak
Runtime: 1 hr. 48 mins.

In SISTER MIDNIGHT, the audacious debut feature from London based Indian artist and filmmaker Karan Kandhari, rebellious small-town misfit Uma (acclaimed Indian actress Radhika Apte) arrives in Mumbai to find herself totally unsuited to life as a housewife. At odds with her prying neighbors and under the constant oppressive noise and heat of the city, she decides to break free from the shackles of domesticity and follow her own path in this bold, unpredictable, and darkly funny debut. Featuring an eclectic soundtrack (Interpol frontman Paul Banks makes his debut as composer) and singular visual aesthetic, the film world-premiered in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight and won the award for Best Film in the Next Wave section at Fantastic Fest.

Cast: Zhao Tao, Zhubin Li
Runtime: 1 hr. 51 mins.

The preeminent dramatist of China’s rapid 21st-century growth and social transformation, Jia Zhangke has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous Caught by the Tides. Assembled from footage shot over a span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences—Caught by the Tides is a free-flowing work of unspoken longing, carried along more by music than dialogue as it looms around the edges of a poignant love story. The film mostly adheres to the perspective of Qiaoqiao (Jia’s immortal muse Zhao Tao) as she wanders an increasingly unrecognizable country in search of long-lost lover Bin (Li Zhubin), who left their home city of Datong seeking new financial prospects. The always captivating Zhao carries the film with her delicate expressiveness, while Jia constantly evokes cinema’s ability to capture the passage of time and the persistence of change: of people, landscapes, cities, politics, ideas.

Cast: Charis Michelsen, Gabriel Mann
Runtime: 1 hr. 41 mins.

Lisa Cholodenko's Sundance award-winning romantic drama about a photo magazine editor and the heroin-addicted former photo prodigy with whom she falls in love is ripe in cliches and artifice, but features two of the year's best performances, from Ally Sheedy and newcomer Radha Mitchell.