Author: Stephen Dalton

Home is definitely not where the heart is in young German writer-director Kai Stänicke’s ‘Trial of Hein’, a ponderous but mostly impressive drama about exile, identity and repressed desire.

Bravely defying government restrictions on her work, Iranian writer-director Mahnaz Mohammadi draws on her own prison experiences to make her gripping, Kafka-esque, artfully time-scrambled thriller ‘Roya’.

Director Faraz Shariat’s second feature ‘Prosecution’ is a stylish, fast-paced, politically charged crime thriller about a young German-Korean state prosecutor targeted by neo-Nazi racists.

Belgian director Anke Blondé’s atmospheric psychodrama ‘Dust’ chronicles the downfall of two high-flying Belgian software tycoons consumed by corporate greed and alpha-male arrogance.