I recently had the great privilege to program a small film festival at my local theater. The theme I chose was “Directed By Women,” in an effort to celebrate and spotlight women directors. I tried to make the offering of films as varied as possible, presenting everything from Oscar-winning fare to indie documentaries—and films both foreign and domestic. The directors whose films I chose ranged from Ida Lupino (The Hitch-Hiker) to Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). If only I had seen Our Loved Ones before then, I would have begged to include Anne Émond’s film on the roster.

The story begins with the death of a family’s patriarch. Of the decedent’s five children, two are sons. The elder son, André (Mickaël Gouin), who discovers his father’s body, lies to his younger, more sensitive brother David (Maxim Gaudette), as well as other family members who were not present, about the circumstances surrounding their father’s death. There is no malfeasance behind the false explanation, only a desire to shield the younger son and others from the painful truth.

As years and decades pass, David grows up, grows older, and comes into his own. He has both professional and artistic success as a maker of marionettes, he is able to employ André (at their mother’s behest—but still), and he has two beautiful children of his own. That said, and setting aside these successes, David still lives with the specter of his father’s passing, and his relationship with his teen daughter Laurence (Karelle Tremblay) presents challenges he doesn’t expect.

Our Loved Ones (Les êtres chers) is only the second feature from writer/director Anne Émond, but what she puts onscreen shows such tremendous confidence—the film feels like it has come from someone with 10 times her experience.

It starts with the film’s narrative (or the lack thereof). Our Loved Ones doesn’t tell a story so much as it observes one man’s life; that man is David. It hits the two key points in his life it needs to hit (and early) to get the observation going: his father’s death and his introduction to the woman in his life, Marie (Valérie Cadieux). From there, Émond takes something of a highlight reel-approach to her film, skipping huge chunks of David’s life and presenting moments along his timeline. These moments, however, are not typical highlight reel fare. They aren’t the kind of “this is your life” moments many have come to expect from films. They are, however, meaningful later in the film.

This is the real magic of the screenplay. The film has a definitive beginning and, more importantly, a definitive end. But the middle, despite being critical to the conclusion, isn’t driving the film to the end. Émond selects moments that are key to the life she wants us to observe, not the life’s moments we think we should see.

More of that confidence shines in the way Émond presents David’s life, as it demands a lot from the viewer in terms of intelligence and faith. This 102-minute tale spans decades (which is so ambitious for most veteran filmmakers, let a lone a sophomore). As such, Émond must make great leaps forward in time, but when she does, those leaps aren’t announced. There is no subtitle or title card presenting the year in which the new action is taking place; it simply happens. For example, there is a scene early where David and Marie have just met, and they are carefully walking on a frozen lake at night. Cut to the next scene, and not only is it warm and sunny, David and Marie are living together. Cut to the scene after that, and they are at his mother’s house with their baby.

It’s jarring at first because it’s an approach that belies the usual spoon-feeding most movies offer viewers and instead requires the viewer to pay close attention for things in the film that indicate where it is along David’s timeline. This jumping—sometimes far, sometimes not—to points in David’s life that aren’t the usual key moments in a person’s life also requires faith from the viewer that Émond has planned on the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It is.

Despite this praise (which is wholly earned), Émond’s confidence is a little higher than her storytelling skill. There is an event early in the film that aches to be addressed and never is. There is a shocking moment late in the film that comes as some considerable surprise—a moment that is key to the film’s end—but it feels contrived, like Émond wasn’t sure which points to insert into David’s timeline to support this particular moment and instead decided the viewer would simply make some necessary connections to earlier, tangentially related moments. In a film that demands a lot, this is asking for a little too much. Kudos to Émond for not wavering on her approach, but that kind of resolve comes with a price.

Still, this film is mesmerizing in the story it tells and the way it tells it, with a wonderfully soulful performance from acting veteran Gaudette as David, as well as a captivating turn from relative newcomer Tremblay as Laurence. There is great father/daughter chemistry between the two, which is also key to the film’s success. With Our Loved Ones, Anne Émond boldly makes the movie she wants to make, not the movie she thinks the audience is expecting.

Incendies is a French Canadian film directed and written by Denis Villeneuve, which was adapted from a play by Wajdi Mouawad. The film, whose title is translated to Scorched, is a dual narrative about siblings uncovering their families past and the mother’s struggle for survival in times of political conflict. The very opening scene that plays Radiohead’s “You and Whose Army?” in the background, gives off a haunting feel as a room full of Middle Eastern boys are getting their heads shaved. The camera pans to a boy’s tattoo, which means little until later in the film, but it is obvious foreshadowing.

Simon and Jeanne Marwan are twins who live in Canada that are about to hear the last wishes of their mother from the reading of her will. The will said the money is to be equitably shared between the two, the furniture should be distributed by mutual agreement and all the assets will be split. Pretty straight forward until the notary hands them each an envelope that their mother instructed them to give to their father and their brother. Before the reading of the will, they had no idea their father was still alive or that they even had a brother.

The twins travel to the Middle East homeland of their mother, Nawal Marwan, on a mission to find their father and brother. The envelopes that they must deliver to previously unknown family members proves to be a blessing in disguise as they go on to discover the history of her brave and heroic mother.

Through the use of flashbacks, we get to see Nawal living in a war filled country in the Middle East. Nawal was a Christian on the South but she fell in love with a Muslim on the North. This relationship is highly frowned upon politically and religiously as the South and the North are at war with one another.

Nawal is on the North side as she tries visiting her lover as a bus full of people approaches. She could use a lift instead of walking so Nawal quickly takes off her necklace of a cross as the bus is full of Muslim people. She falls asleep on the bus only to be awakening by gun shots. The bus had been stopped by an army of Christian men. Ironically for her, they are Christians killing the Muslims on board. Luckily, she had that cross necklace to show, otherwise she would have ended up dead like all the others on the bus. Watching these turn-of-events unfold is a powerful scene.

Jeanne goes to visit her mother’s old village to get clues to where her father might be. The whole room is in an uproar when she mentions she is a part of the Marwan family. Jeanne was not aware her mother had been impregnated by a man of the rival side, thus considering the family a shame. That is just one part of the mystery she uncovers about her family.

Jeanne continues to visit the places that we see Nawal in in the flashbacks. The aftermath and rumble she sees are haunting as we know what their mother had been through. This is especially true when she visits the prison where her mother was in after she murdered a rival political leader. She finds out that her mother was tortured for 15 years and never once broke down to talk to the guards. Rather than speak she would sing to herself and was known by others in the prison as both Number 72 and “The Woman Who Sings.” Adding to the cruelty, she was raped and subsequently got pregnant just before she was released from prison.

The theme of the Incendies is evident when the mother writes, “Nothing is more important than being together.” The envelopes brought the siblings closer to their mother in a way, even though she had passed away. If was not for the envelopes they would not know who their father or brother was, but most importantly, what her mother had been through. Even though her mother could have just told them while she was alive but that would not have been nearly as good of a story.

Incendies earned a 2010 Academy award nomination for Best Foreign Film, which I felt was very deserving. The storyline was brilliantly written and the cinematography was done wonderfully, the camera placements and photography captured the mood. Luna Azabal was by far the performance that stood out the best, the rest are mostly forgettable compared to her.

One of the best qualities about Incendies is the way everything comes together at the end. It reveals the mystery with a few big twists, which would be completely ruined if I mentioned what they were. Because of the dual narrative storylines, some of the flashback scenes of their mother in danger are a little less dramatic because we know she lives through it. However, that is not a major plot point of the film, the cruelty and tragedy still have an overwhelming impact.