The film is Na putu (On the Path), and it is the highly anticipated follow up to Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic’s 2006 Golden Bear triumph Grbavica. It premieres in Belgium as the opening film of Opendoek, a top-notch festival of films dealing with social and justice issues.

The closing film of the festival, The Last Summer of the Boyita, is also about a girl in a state of confusion – though much younger, as a pre-adolescent on summer holiday discovers that her new friend is caught between genders (pictured). Written and directed by Argentina’s Julia Solomonoff, it’s already won two awards on the festival circuit.

Although you’ll find several films that are playing or have played other festivals – such as the sensitive Jewish drama Eyes Wide Open and Michael Winterbottom’s new documentary on “disaster capitalism”, The Shock Doctrine – Opendoek (the name means “open curtain”) seeks to represent women directors and others whose films have a hard time reaching audiences. That includes countries with a historically struggling film industry, such as Colombia and Algeria.

From the former comes El vuelco del cangrejo (Crab Trap), a quietly exquisite debut from writer/director Oscar Ruiz Navia about the arrival of a mysterious white man in an all-black coastal village, and Los viajes del viento (The Wind Journeys), a better known multiple-award winner that finds an old musician on a road trip relentlessly pestered by an enthusiastic (if talentless) teenager. The two films together are an excellent sample of modern Colombian cinema.

From Algeria, meanwhile, is Merzak Allouache’s Harragas, a drama about young Algerians risking their lives to sail across the sea towards other countries.

As might be expected at Opendoek this year, there are also a number of films set in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including Flemish anthropologist and filmmaker Filip De Boeck’s fascinating Cemetery State, which examines the politics of death in a supposedly closed Kinshasa graveyard.

With a strong schools programme, Opendoek goes to great lengths to uncover the best of world cinema that appeals to young people. A stand out is Lola, the newest film from Brillante Mendoza, whose previous feature, the gruesomely violent Kinatay, caused an uproar last year at Cannes, where the Filipino won best director. Though Lola is emotionally difficult, it’s less grim, as two women come to grips with the same crime: one is the grandmother of the victim, the other of the perpetrator.

In fact, as part of a spotlight on Filipino cinema, the festival presents a retrospective of Mendoza’s work, and the director will be on hand to discuss his many films.

23 April – 2 May
Utopolis & De Warande
Turnhout 
www.opendoek.be