Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda turns 55 this week and the release of his latest feature, After the Storm, provides further cause for celebration. Since focusing on lost souls in Maborosi (1995), After Life (1998) and Distance (2001), Kore-eda has followed in the shomin-geki footsteps of Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse in examining diverse aspects of modern family life in Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), I Wish (2011), Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Our Little Sister (2015). But, while this stylistically conservative, but socio-politically acute dramedy cleaves closely to the Kore-eda template, it also contains echoes of two lesser-known works: Hana (2006), an 18th-century samurai spin on Hamlet's existential dilemma, and Air Doll (2009), a disarmingly poignant parable about loneliness that revolves around a middle-aged salaryman's relationship with an inflatable sex toy.

Despite being married for over 50 years, Kirin Kiki is coping well with being a widow. Daughter Satomi Kobayashi comes to fuss over her in her tiny flat in a condominium estate on the outskirts of the Tokyo satellite city of Kiyose. Kiki insists she is too old to make new friends and wouldn't relish the prospect of all those funerals. But she has recently started listening to classical music and son Hiroshi Abe teases her about becoming cultured in her seventies. She gets her revenge, however, when she compares him to the tangerine tree he grew from a pip on the balcony, as it is good for feeding the caterpillars, while he has been struggling since winning a major literary prize 15 years ago. Indeed, he has come to visit in the hope of finding something valuable he can sell to fund his gambling addiction, as he doesn't earn enough working for Lily Franky's detective agency, even when he blackmails the people he is supposed to be tailing.

Stooping under the low ceiling, Abe insists he is researching a new novel. But Kiki knows about his issues, as he closely resembles his father, even though they didn't always get along. She asks him to help move the plants, as the 23rd typhoon of the season is due, but Kiki has to clean up when Abe accidentally breaks a window. He takes her recycling to the bin and they bump into neighbour Isao Hashizume, who runs the classical class and compliments Kiki on having such a brilliant son. As they wait at the bus stop, Kiki inquires after her 12 year-old grandson, Taiyo Yoshizawa, who lives with his careerist mother, Yoko Maki. Abe is pleased that the boy has taken up baseball and plans to buy him a glove so that they can play catch. But being a good dad is expensive.

En route for the city centre, Abe drops in on pawnbroker Mickey Curtis and learns that his father had beaten him to the decorative scroll he had been hoping to sell. But, even though cheating wife Izumi Matsuoka agrees to pay to keep her visit to a love hotel secret, Abe blows his bribe at the cycle track and young assistant Sosuke Ikematsu warns him that he needs to get his gambling under control or Franky will rumble him and give him the boot. However, Franky is quite prepared to chisel his own clients and secretary Yuri Nakamura tuts at them all, as they make fun of the crisis in Japanese masculinity. Nevertheless, Abe lingers in a doorway to watch Maki at her estate agency before returning to his cluttered apartment, where he scribbles a post-it about how he allowed his life to become such a mess before he crashes on his floor mattress.

When Ikematsu calls for Abe the next morning, they go to spy on Yoshizawa playing baseball. Abe takes exception to Maki sitting so close to boss and new boyfriend Yukiyoshi Ozawa and is dismayed to learn that he is very rich. Ozawa berates Yoshizawa for not getting a strike, but his father realises he was trying to draw a walk and this insight into his son's psyche deftly establishes their bond, as Abe follows the trio to a floating restaurant. He even sidles into the washroom to chat with his son at the urinal and urge him to find out if his mother has any plans to marry her beau. Unfazed, as he is used to his father's eccentricities, Yoshizawa returns to the table, where Maki is dismayed to hear Ozawa admit that he hadn't understood Abe's novel.

Abe is also frustrated when publisher Kanji Furutachi asks if he would like to concoct the storyline for a manga artist. So, he lies that he is close to completing his next book and goes to the restaurant where Kobayashi works to touch her for a loan. She taunts him that he is just as shifty as their father, whom she blames for keeping Kiki cooped up in a tiny flat for so long. Yet, if she had moved away, Kiki wouldn't have been able to attend Hashizume's music sessions, along with several other matrons seeking a little late-life companionship and a break from making ice treats for their grandchildren.

Back at the office, Ikematsu, Franky and Nakamura tease Abe about stalking Maki when he had barely mentioned her when they were still married. The latter dons a wig and a short dress to follow Matsuoka's treacherous spouse to a love hotel, where she takes photos as Abe tries to record the lovers through the wall of the neighbouring room. Matsuoka is delighted with the evidence that will enable her to fleece her husband and Ikematsu pleads with Abe not to blow this unexpected bonus. He insists he will use it to pay off his alimony arrears and buy Yoshizawa a pair of baseball cleats. However, Franky discovers he has been shaking down a high-school kid and orders Abe to hand over the cash. As they sit in a pachinko parlour, Ikematsu offers to tied him over. But, luckily, Abe had kept some of Matsuoka's payment separately and he buys the boots (albeit after scuffing the one on display to persuade the clerk into giving him a discount).

Maki is furious with Abe for failing to meet his payments, but allows him to take Yoshizawa out for the afternoon. Over lunch, Abe asks what they boy had found out about his mother's romance and is stung when he reveals that she has forgotten what it felt like to be in love with his father. They buy lottery tickets and Abe shows Yoshizawa some of his juvenile haunts after they catch a bus to visit Kiki. She is entertaining Kobayashi and her family and Abe accuses her of being dutiful solely in order to dupe Kiki into paying for her brattish daughter's figure skating lessons. They leave to beat the storm, just as Maki comes to collect Yoshizawa. However, Kiki talks her into staying for supper and then convinces her to spend the night rather than cross town in the downpour.

Abe is squeamish about eating a curry that Kiki had kept frozen for six months and both his mother and ex-wife deride him for being a failed nostalgic. But Yoshizawa enjoys helping out in the kitchen and talks his mother into playing Game of Life while Abe takes a bath. He just about squeezes into the tiny tub and emerges in a pair of old pyjamas to find Kiki laying three futons side by side so that they can sleep together as a family. Left alone, Abe asks Maki about her paramour and pries about their sex life. She admits to wanting more children, but takes exception to Abe touching her knee and accuses him of being in cahoots with Kiki in a reconciliation plot. Moreover, she informs him that she has lost patience with his failure to pay maintenance and that she is withdrawing his visitation privileges until the debt is cleared.

While everyone else sleeps, Abe snoops around the flat in search of something to sell. He finds an elaborately wrapped package that contains nothing but a note from Kobayashi delighting in beating him to the punch. However, he pockets an ink stone and begins searching through an incense pot for unburnt shards. Kiki wanders in to join him. She enjoys storms, but warns Abe that her time is running out and that he should make the most of her. When he asks if she is ill, she ticks him off for being so lost in the past and far-fetched dreams that he is unable to live in the present. A sentimental Teresa Teng song comes on the radio (whose lyrics include the film's Japanese title, `Even Deeper Than the Sea'), and Kiki reminds Abe that life is simple and that the secret of happiness is to spend each day seeking joy. She is pleased with her maxim and urges him to write it down and use it in his next book.

When Yoshizawa wakes up, Abe suggests they brave the rain and shelter in the pink fibre glass climbing frame where he had once hidden from the storm with his own father. They gather some snacks and sneak out, leaving Kiki and Maki to apologise affectionately to each other for the fact that Abe had not been husband material. Down in the playground, Yoshizawa asks Abe why he had fallen out with his grandfather and he shrugs before blaming the fact he had become a novelist. He smiles when Yoshizawa reveals that he wants to be a public servant when he grows up (as that had also been his childhood ambition) and promises that he will be proud of him providing he always tries to improve on his best.

Maki ventures out to join them and they watch Yoshizawa run out into the rain to buy drinks from a kiosk. Abe tries to apologise to Maki, but she insists things will be fine, even though there can be no going back. He swears he understands and they sit silently for a moment before Yoshizawa returns. However, he has dropped his lottery tickets and the three scour the sodden playground before returning for breakfast. Kiki offers Abe one of his father's shirts (despite claiming to have disposed of all of his belongings) and waves from the balcony, as they wander to the bus stop.

Abe takes a detour via Curtis's shop and discovers that the ink stone is worth 300,000 yen. He is also pleased when Curtis asks him to sign the first edition of The Empty Table that his father had given to all his friends because he was so proud that his son had been published. On the ride into the city, Abe tells Yoshizawa he can keep all of the lottery tickets and Maki smiles, even though she doesn't want him to pick up his father's bad habits. They part at the secondhand bookstall and arrange to meet again next month. Maki says it will depend on Abe paying his arrears. But he swears he will, as he watches them walk away before disappearing into the crowd.

Relying on sporting gambits, post-it pensées, cookery tips and geriatric ramblings to convey his key messages, Kore-eda manages to spin quotidian stuff into dramatic gold in this amusingly moving reflection on human inadequacy and life's infuriating refusal to go according to plan. Immature and irresponsible, the gangling Abe should be eminently resistible, as he dupes, deceives and disappoints everyone he knows. Yet, accompanied by an infectious Hanaregumi score full of acoustic strumming, brass riffs and insouciant whistling, his flailing efforts to get his life back on track appear so genuine that even those he has let down most egregiously keep giving him one last chance to make good.

Maki might be ready to move on, but she knows Ozawa is a poor consolation prize and she almost envies the indomitable streak that enabled Kiki to put up with her own spouse's flaws and foibles for half a century. But the magnificent Kiki is anything but a downtrodden victim, as she has learnt how to exploit people's remorse without them being any the wiser. The way in which she manipulates Maki into staying the night is delightfully funny, while her insights into her son's psyche are achingly poignant, as she worries that he will still not have grown up by the time she has to leave him. But, even though there are grounds for optimism in the teasingly ambiguous ending, it's unlikely that any of Abe's many epiphanies will convince him to mend his ways.

Some critics have suggested that this is a minor entry in the Kore-eda canon. But, set in the low-rent danchi where the director grew up, the Renoiresque script is as intricate and nuanced as Keiko Mitsumatsu's production design and Akiko Matsuba's exquisite set decoration, which are captured with unerring discretion by Yutaka Yamazakis mostly static camera. Abe may be at the centre of the lament for Japanese masculinity, but this is also a celebration of family forthrightness and female fortitude and this latter aspect tilts this lovely picture in the direction of the gendai-geki of another past master, Kenji Mizoguchi.

No one can accuse the Spanish-born and British-based director Jonathan Cenzual Burley of playing safe. Having flecked The Soul of Flies (2011) and The Year and the Vineyard (2013) with left-field humour, he adopts a more sombre tone for El Pastor/The Shepherd, which follows Kleber Mendonça Filho's Aquarius in a growing series of films centred on real estate refuseniks. In many way, the story of a simple shepherd holding out against his irate neighbours feels like something imported from the Wild West to recessional Spain. But, while it ends (rather speciously) in a classic shootout, this is as much an elegy for a passing way of life as it is a study of macho mores.

Waking before dawn in the shack on the Salamanca plain in which he was born, 55 year-old Anselmo Garcia (Miguel Martún) feeds his trusty dog, Pillo, before making coffee, showering and smoking the first roll-up of the day. As the sun comes up, he releases the large flock he tends from its pen and guides it towards the pasture. Content with his own company, he sees no one and passes the time reading and skimming stones in a pool before steering the bleating sheep home at dusk. When darkness falls, he wanders into the village to the bar run by Quique (Carlos San Jorge), who teases him about living in the Stone Age for not having a television. Sipping red wine and munching peanuts, Anselmo insists that books keep him entertained and, the following morning, he pops into the library, where Concha (Maribel Iglesias) recommends a biography of Picasso.

Returning to the shack, Anselmo sees Pillo snuffling around a sleek black car. Its occupants (who are scared of dogs) introduce themselves as Manuel Jacinto (Luis Rodrigo Oliver) and Ernest Palomo (José Carlos Martin), who explain that they represent the Espanax construction company that has plans to build a luxury housing estate on the grazing land. They inform him that all of his neighbours have agreed to sell up and try to enthuse him by revealing that his plot will be the site of a sports centre. But Anselmo has no intention of leaving his home or abandoning his vocation and the frustrated Jacinto drives away confident that he will change his mind once he sees everyone else spending their windfalls. However, as Palomo points out, no one will be paid until a blanket deal has been confirmed.

Unconcerned, Anselmo cooks himself supper and shares a slice of sausage with Pillo. But neighbours Julián (Alfonso Mendiguchia) and Paco (Juan Luis Sara) are outraged by his behaviour and are hardly mollified by Jacinto and Palomo's assurance that Anselmo is not the first village idiot they have had to handle. Paco's mood is hardly helped when wife Manoli (Maite Iglesias) berates him during supper with their three sons and she warns him that he will have to get used to fatty meat unless he forces through the deal so that they can afford a decent cooker.

Anselmo goes hunting for pheasant with Pillo and they bag a brace. As he is plucking the birds, Ignacio (Jaime Santos) drops in to warn him that Paco and Julián are angry with him for refusing to sell. They have land adjacent to his plot and Ignacio (who has a small allotment nearby) muses that they won't understand his motives for wanting to stay. Sure enough, after Anselmo chats with Pilar the vet (Pilar Bartolomé), Paco and Julián corner him at Quique's bar and urge him to relent for the greater good. The intemperate Paco reminds him that his shack means he stands to get a better payout than the rest of them and could live like a king in a new house. But Anselmo has no desire to leave his birthplace or his profession and bids them goodnight.

Before first light, Anselmo leads his flock over a motorway bridge to a new pasture. As he strolls along, he sees a billboard advertising the Los Montillos project and can barely contain his indignation. He takes the bus into Salamanca and starts chatting with Concha. She asks if he ever gets afraid or lonely on his own in the fields, but he reassures her that he feels at home there and is content with his lot, even though he never found a woman to share it with. Flirting mildly, she laughs when he promises he has never satiated his lust with a sheep and she waves fondly as she wanders off in the direction of the cathedral.

Having purchased some shotgun shells, Anselmo drops into the bar, where he gets into a conversation with Ignacio and Quique. The latter informs him that Julian is up to his eyes in debt, as the recession meant he was unable to pay for his new slaughterhouse. Anselmo admits he feels bad that they will suffer, but stands by his right to defend his home. As he arrives home, however, he finds Julián waiting for him and he offers him a tour of the abattoir. He shows him the freezer filled with porcine carcasses and casually mentions that 50 men rely on him for their livelihoods. Over a glass of wine, Julián offers Anselmo a job with a good salary and a pension. He even promises to buy his sheep for a cat food factory and feels more positive after Anselmo agrees to consider his proposition.

As he looks around his shabby home, he peruses the Espanax leaflet. But another day on the plain under magnificent skies convinces him that he is doing the right thing. However, events take a dramatic turn when Paco 's sons throw stones at the shack and Anselmo reports them to Pablo the cop (Pablo Malaga) for breaking a window. He doesn't want to get them in trouble, however, and decides against making an official complaint. But Paco threatens to kill him if he comes near his kids again and swears that he will do everything in his power to drive Anselmo off his land so that he can make a fresh start. Moreover, he punches Anselmo in the face after he rescues his middle child from a well and carries him into the village.

So, in his frustration, Anselmo pours petrol on the billboard and is arrested for burning it down. However, there is no evidence to link him to the crime and he leaves the police station heeding Pablo's warning to be careful. He returns to find Paco and Julián waiting for him. The former is spoiling for a fight, but Julian shuts him up and renews his offer of work. But Anselmo hisses that the only way they will get his land is if they take it from him. Julian calls Jacinto, who gives him two days to conclude the deal or he will call in the loan for the abattoir and leave Julián homeless and broke. He also warns him that he will pay the price if anything leaks about the shadier side of the transaction.

Paco tells Manoli that they plan to take Anselmo to court and have him declared insane. But she says he should be grateful that the shepherd saved his boy and let the matter drop. Flustered because his wife had nagged him to get the money in the first place, Paco slumps against the kitchen units. However, he doesn't have long to feel sorry for himself, as Julián storms in and grabs him by the lapels for shooting his mouth off and putting Anselmo on the defensive, When Manoli demands to know what's going on, Julián threatens to cave her mouth in and she bursts into tears when Paco pushes away a consoling hug and scuttles after his friend.

They wait until dark before Julián hands Paco a knife and he cuts his hand in stabbing Pillo. Anselmo carries the dog into the village, where Pilar is waiting for him. But he refuses to answer the door when Pablo calls to check on him and it is only when the cop notices a bandage on Paco's hand that he begins investigating Espanax online. Meanwhile, Paco waits in Julián's office, as the time ticks down towards the deadline. But Julián's patience runs out and they drives out to the shack as darkness falls. Worried something terrible is going to happen, Manoli calls Pablo, who are sets off for the plain. However, he arrives after Anselmo guns down Paco and Julián and seems to come out of a trance, as he looks around his familiar surroundings as Pablo urges him to lower his weapon.

Many have applauded the climactic shootout, with some suggesting that John Ford might have been proud of such a stirring resolution. But, even though it recalls Carlos Saura's equally brutal masterpiece, La Caza (1966), the finale feels forced, especially as Miguel Martín's underdog seems closer in spirit one of the men of principle that Henry Fonda used to play for Ford rather than one of John Wayne's men of action. The injury to Pillo might well have tipped him over the edge, but Anselmo feels too grounded to have resorted to such drastic measures (even if he had polished off a couple of bottles of wine).

Yet, bearing in mind the legacy of the Spanish Civil War, Cenzual Burley doesn't stray too far from the realms of possibility. Indeed, given the way in which avaricious capitalists plunged the country into the worst recession in its recent history, the intra-class tensions feel much more authentic than they did in Icíar Bollaín's The Olive Tree. But, while the ending will divide opinion, few will question the excellence of the performances, with Martín's stoic shepherd being as eminently empathetic as the pugnacious Juan Luis Sara and the scheming Alfonso Mendiguchia are hissably resistible. Serving as his own cinematographer, Cenzuel Burley also makes evocative use of the Castilian landscape and its dramatic skies, while Laura Drewett's production design is as unassuming as Tim Walters's score in rooting this parable on the corrupting nature of greed in a passing reality.

A similar story is told by veteran director John Goldschmidt in Dough, as an ageing Londoner locks horns with an avaricious convenience store owner with designs on his kosher bakery. Adding some spice to the mix is the fact that the baker is Jewish and that his best hope of saving his business lies in taking on a Muslim apprentice. Yet, while this may seem like a recipe for cornball schmaltz, it should be noted that the late Jez Freedman made his contribution to the screenplay while battling Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, while Goldschmidt came aboard after the murder of Arab-Israeli collaborator Juliano Mer-Khamis forced him to abandon a drama set in a refugee camp.

As Jonathan Pryce wakes before dawn to open the East End bakery that has been in his family for generations, 16 year-old Darfur migrant Jerome Holder loses his trousers in escaping from a nightclub being raided by the police. Mother Natasha Gordon catches him sneaking home after he entrusts a stash belonging to drug dealer Ian Hart to buddies Andrew Ellis and Malachi Kirby. She promises that his father will soon join them, but Holder is tired of being a squeegee merchant and being abused by motorists like Philip Davis, who runs the mini-market that is taking so much of Pryce's business that he is concerned that recently widowed landlady Pauline Collins will sell up and force him to close down.

When assistant Dominic Garfield quits to work for Davis, Pryce goes to see Collins, who informs him that she has decided to part with the freehold and enjoy what's left of her life on the proceeds. Appalled to learn that she plans to hand control over to Davis, Pryce wishes he could work with young granddaughter, Melanie Freeman. But, instead, he agrees to give Holder a chance, as he is fond of his cleaner mother and amused by the way Gordon clips her son around the ear when he gives her cheek. Just as Pryce washes his hands and prays before leaving the house, so Holder cleans his feet and, even though Pryce objects to him doing his devotions in the shop, he has no problems with his new helper being a Muslim, as he respects a fellow man of faith.

Hart had ordered Holder to get a cover job before he would entrust him with drugs to sell and he leaves the bakery to collect his first consignment. However, he is nervous that Gordon will find it and asks the reckless Kirby and Ellis to hide it for him. Meanwhile, Pryce discovers that Davis has bought out his chemist neighbour and he interrupts Collins during a pilates class to beg her not to play into Davis's hands. But he fails to realise that Collins is interested in him as a companion rather than a business partner and winds up flat on the floor after she pushes him off a body ball.

Having come to trust Holder, Pryce shows him how to bake challah. However, he doesn't know that he has started dealing from the shop, with special customers asking for extra poppy seeds. Pryce is baffled by one stoner and tells Holder to serve him, as he doesn't have time to waste with crackpots. But, just as business starts to boom, Holder is startled by a couple of cops coming to buy bagels and tips a bag full of weed into the dough mix. Pryce uses it to bake challah and gets the giggles dining with lawyer son Daniel Caltagirone and his wife, Deborah Sheridan-Taylor. Roaring with laughter at a joke Freeman tells at the dinner table, Pryce puts his good mood down to a new brand of wine. But rabbi Daniel Ben Zenou also compliments him on the excellent bread and buddy Andy de la Tour suggests that Holder might have a magic touch.

Thus, when Gordon and Holder are flooded out of their flat, Pryce offers them the spare room because his takings have doubled in a week. Hart is also pleased with Holder for selling his stash so quickly and allows him to invest in some hash. He uses this to make hash brownies, which Pryce wolfs down so quickly that he agrees to start selling them in the shop (although it's not explained how Holder gets his cut of the cash that goes into Pryce's till). Soon, queues are forming down the street and everyone from local punks to Collins's bridge club are getting high. But, while the local paper carries a story on the bakery's upturned fortunes, Davis smells a rat because the street has suddenly turned into `Fiddler on the Roof Meets West Side Story'.

When Pryce rejects an offer to bake exclusively for his store, Davis decides to find out what makes his goods to moreish. But Pryce presses on with his plan to persuade Collins to sell to him by taking her dancing (after a disastrous practice session at the back of the shop with Holder). However, Caltagirone is worried that Pryce is risking his inheritance and they argue when Holder takes his boss's side. As they chat after work, Holder describes how the Janjaweed attacked his village and Pryce gives him a chain so he can wear his father's ring around his neck. Moreover, he lets him run the bakery on his own for a day. But Holder gets taken by surprise by Davis blundering in and he spots the dropped bag on the workroom floor.

While Davis makes preparations to have some bagels and muffins tested, Pryce drops by to negotiate a deal. He has just fired Holder and torn his clothing after smashing items in his kitchen. But Hart has spotted the item in the paper and tracks down Holder to demand his share of the profits. When the teenager refuses, Hart breaks the shop window and sets light to some paper bags after emptying the till. Pryce arrives back to scare him off (although not before he has stolen Holder's ring) and they extinguish the flames before heading home. Hart is arrested, but Holder remembers that Davis saw the weed on the floor and they decide to break into his office and steal the evidence before he can send it to the lab. Having made replacement baked goods, they pose as cleaners and blag their way past the security guards on reception. Naturally, they momentarily get them muddled up. But each man says a prayer and takes a lucky dip and, as a consequence, the results come back negative and Davis is forced to play fair.

Just as Pryce is about to sign, however, he sees a model of the multi-storey car park that Davis plans to build on the site and he and Collins cancel the deal forthwith. What's more, Pryce invites Collins to dinner before taking his granddaughter on holiday to the seaside. He leaves Holder and his mother in charge and tells an old friend who disapproves of black Muslims running the shop to take his custom elsewhere. Passing the boarded-up 7/11, Pryce and Freeman skip through the puddles to a waiting taxi.

With the affectionate references to Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain (1952) and George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) livening up proceedings, this is a genial, if wholly predictable picture. The ever-reliable Jonathan Pryce is well matched by Jerome Holder, while Pauline Collins twinkles mischievously (her parting line to the knowingly villainous Davis is a gem). Ian Hart provides some menace, but much of the support playing is less distinguished. Jez Freedman and Jonathan Benson's script also soft pedals what could have been contentious themes, while relying too heavily for cheap laughs and dramatic momentum on the laced dough idea that had been round the block a few times (also in a spiked drink version) before Gregg Araki recycled it for Smiley Face (2007).

Yet, while this is frequently as twee as Lorne Balfe's score, it's also undemandingly enjoyable in making a plea for tolerance and diversity that can never be repeated often enough.

It's not often that an album prompts the reappraisal of a bygone film. But, such was the socio-cultural impact made by Beyoncé's Lemonade (2016) that critics fell over themselves to rediscover Daughters of the Dust, the 1991 feature that made LA Rebellion director Julie Dash the first African-American woman see her feature go on general release in the United States. This statistic would be shocking in itself were it not for the fact that so few black women have followed in Dash's footsteps. Cheryl Dunye, Neema Barnette, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Angela Robinson, Darnell Martin and documentarist Ava DuVernay may not be household names, but they continue to make an important contribution to American cinema, along with Dash, even though she has largely been snubbed by Hollywood and has had to subsist on teaching, music videos and teleplays like The Rosa Parks Story (2002).

As the opening credits explain, at the turn of the last century, descendants of `African Captives' known as Sea Island Gullahs lived off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Isolated from the mainland, the Gullah retained a distinctive African-American language and culture that was deeply rooted in the lore of their ancestors. The setting here is Ibo Landing on Dawtuh Island on 18 August 1902 and, over an image of dirt blowing off the open palms of her younger self, 88 year-old Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day) declares (in a passage from the gnostic Nag Hammadi gospels), `I am the first and the last. I am the honoured one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the barren one and many are my daughters. I am the silence that you can not understand. I am the utterance of my name.'

As Muslim Bilal Muhammad (Umar Abdurrahman) prays among the reads, Yellow Mary (Barbara-O) and her lover Trula (Trula Hoosier) return to the South Islands from the city for a final visit before the Peazant family relocates to the mainland. Their boat is met by Viola Peazant (Cheryl Lynn Bruce), who has become a devout Christian since moving to Philadelphia, where she found Mr Snead (Tommy Hicks), the photographer she has hired to record her family's move. He has brought a kaleidoscope with him and enthuses about the beauty and simplicity of its design, while Mary and Trula look through it and giggle.

The story is then taken up by the off-screen voice of the Unborn Child (Kay-Lynn Warren), whose parents are Nana's grandson, Eli (Adisa Anderson), and Eula (Alva Rogers). He is uncertain whether to migrate, but his mother is set against the idea and (as her protests are heard in the Geechee dialect), Iona (Bahni Turpin) reads from a letter from her Native American beau, St Julien Lastchild (M. Cochise Anderson), urging her not to leave. However, her mother, Haagar (Kaycee Moore), who is the driving force behind the move and who heartily disapproves of Mary and her relationship with Trula.

As young girls in white dresses dance in slow-motion on the beach, Eli finds his grandmother in the graveyard. He gives her a handful of chewing tobacco and she urges him not to let the fact that Eula was raped by a white man on the island diminish his love for her and their unborn baby. She also pleads with him to stay strong, as he will be responsible for keeping the family together up north and for ensuring that the traditions of the African past are not lost among the dreams of a better future. In his frustration at not knowing who to blame for Eula's shame, Eli smashes the glass bottles hanging from a fetish tree outside his blacksmith's forge and he struts off into the woods. A herd of horses gallops past him and stops him in his tracks, while Eula fails to feel her daughter tugging on her skirts.

The family go for a picnic and Eula uses a stereoscopic viewer to look at monochrome cityscapes that creakily come to life. Viola's mother (Geraldine Dunston) teaches the children some African words, but she breaks off to greet her daughter, as the boat lands. Haagar can barely disguise her contempt for Mary and Trula, but they are unconcerned. While Snead poses the menfolk for a photograph on the tideline (where he momentarily sees the Unborn Child through the lens), Viola reads from Scripture to a gaggle of intrigued children and she promises them that their sins can be washed away by believing in Jesus Christ.

Eula joins Mary and Trula, as they smoke against a gnarled tree. Mary tells Eula to keep the identity of her assailant secret, as it will only result in a lynching and she will be forced to raise her child alone. She recalls miscarrying her own baby and wetnursing for a wealthy family before homesickness prompted her to leave. As she pines for some old-fashioned gumbo, the Unborn Child reveals that she will have a struggle to convince Eli that he is her biological father, but she will never give him cause to doubt.

As Mary, Trula and Eula wander on the beach and find an old parasol rotting in the sand, Iona sneaks away from the women preparing the food to meet St Julien. Haagar wishes she had better control over her daughter and gets into an argument with Viola about Nana. Having married into the family, Haagar is eager to break with the old ways and wants her children to seize the opportunities presented by a new world. But Viola reminds her that Nana has devoted her life to the family and that Haagar should be more sensitive about her feelings, as everyone she loves is leaving her behind.

While the men erect a canopy against an approaching storm, Viola shows the young girls the correct way to sit on a chair, while Eli gambles with his pals and wrestles playfully with his newly married cousin (Malik Farrakhan). As he walks through the woods, Eli thinks he sees a young girl running and the Unborn Child returns to the slave times when exhausted bodies dyed cloth indigo in large stone vats. But she is distracted by an advertisement for a teddy bear in a sales catalogue (which Mary calls a `wish book') and everyone laughs when young Ninnyjugs (Jabario Cuthbert) declares that he would like every item on the page.

Viola goes to fetch Snead and she confides that the people have changed little in the 50 years since slavery was abolished, as they still give their children owned names. But, as they come together to eat, Nana recalls in voiceover how the 18th-century Africans kept track of their family ties, even when they were sold or forced to mate with their kinfolk. Addressing his relations, Daddy Mack (Cornell Royal) reminds them never to forget the lessons that Nana has taught them. As he speaks, Eula feels the spirit of her child move inside her and she recites a legend about the Igbo ancestors who took one look at their new home and began walking on the water to return to Africa. Eli joins her and walks on the water to release an African masthead that has become becalmed and it floats away. On returning to the shore, he kneels before his wife and clings to her.

Having tucked into a freshly cooked meal, everyone lounges around on the sand. Mary tells Eula about a case she once saw that would have been ideal for hiding past things she no longer wishes to contemplate. She dreams of living in Nova Scotia and admits that she needs to have new places and faces in her life. Snead takes lots of pictures and gathers the family into a single group before asking Viola to introduce him to Bilal, who has spurned a baptism ceremony in the sea to pray by himself. He tells Snead how he came from the French West Indies on a boat called The Wanderer after the slave trade had been officially abolished. Nana also harks back to the olden times, as she fears that those heading north will sever their links to the soil that sustained them and Eula echoes her words by urging everyone to remember the past, but also not to forget the shackles that kept them in this place and caused the scars that can only be healed by moving on.

Eula embraces Mary and Nana, whose mind wanders back to when her younger self (Sharria Johnson) let dust slip off her fingers and Daddy Mack (Leroy Simmons, Jr.) had reassured her that everything was going to be fine. She makes a totem containing a piece of her own hair and ties it to Viola's Bible. As Haagar rails against her for trying to put people off leaving, Nana invites her relatives to kiss the amulet and receive her blessing and even Viola joins in. But Trula is upset by the sight of Mary on her knees and she runs away, while Iona pleads with her mother not to spoil a poignant moment. She also breaks her heart by stepping off the boat taking the migrants to the mainland and riding into the woods with St Julien. Much to Trula's distress, Mary also remains behind, as the craft glides slowly into the dusk light, and the film ends with the Unborn Child describing how she arrived in time for Nana to see her and grew up in the land of her ancestors.

Inspired by the transit of Dash's paternal family and originally conceived as a dialogue-free short in 1975, this remarkable film took a decade to develop, during which time Dash produced Illusions (1982), a probing insight into the status of black actresses in 1940s Hollywood. Unable to secure studio backing, Dash received $800,000 from the American Playhouse strand of the Public Broadcasting System and completed the shoot in 28 days on St Helena Island and Hunting Island. Collaborating with production designer Kerry Marshall and costumier Arline Burks Gant, she created an Edenic version of Gullah society that was made all the more authentic by the dialect coaching of Sea Island specialist, Ronald Daise. The wondrously elliptical editing took a further year, during which time John Barnes composed the stirring score that made extensive use of drums, as well as such instruments as the African bata and the Middle Eastern santour.

Intense, intricate and mesmeric, this is not an easy film to fathom on a single viewing. Weaving myths, motifs and rhythms with the finesse of a griot, Dash challenges the viewer to surrender to the sights and sounds of a culture that had been preserved for so long with such reverence and which must have seemed a million miles away from the experience of most African-Americans trapped in poverty in the urban sprawls of the post-industrial north. But there is also something Chekhovian about the cadenced drama that unfolds in a non-linear manner through the eyes of two narrators and the lens of cinematographer Arthur Jafa.

Often viewed in tight close-ups that focus on their facial expressions, the female members of the cast do much of the talking, as they seek to put a post-colonialist spin on the hopes and fears of the emancipation era. First seen emerging from the salt water, Cora Lee Day's proud matriarch shares the narrative duties with Kai-Lynn Warren's Unborn Child. But Dash also gives memorable speeches to Alva Rogers, Kaycee Moore and Barbara-O, whose relationship with Trula Hoosier is intriguingly ambiguous until the little wave that the latter gives from the boat reveals the depth of their connection. It would be fascinating to see what became of Trula and Yellow Mary, but Dash shifted her focus to Elizabeth Peazant when she published a novelised sequel in 1992. This was also called Daughters of the Dust. But, despite the recent revival of interest in Dash and her oeuvre, one suspects that many hurdles would have to be negotiated before a screen version ever appeared. While it can't quite match Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle for artistic style, Swiss debutant Claude Barras's My Life As a Courgette is set to be one of the animated highlights of 2017. Adapted from Gilles Paris's 2002 novel, Autobiographie d'une Courgette, this is an inspired collaboration between Barras and writer-director Céline Sciamma, who has already shown a ready empathy with French youth in Water Lillies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014), as well as in her screenplay for André Téchiné's Being 17 (2016). But she is clearly on the same wavelength as Barras, who has consistently amused with such innovative shorts as Mélanie (1998), Banquise (2005), The Genie in a Ravioli Can (2006), The Holy Beard (2007) and Land of the Heads (2009).

Nine year-old Icare (Erick Abbate) lives in a garret room with his alcoholic mother (Susan Blakelee), who has given him the nickname, Courgette. He spends his days drawing on the walls with his pencils and crayons and collecting the beer cans that his mother leaves around the apartment. One day, he depicts the father who abandoned him as a superhero on a yellow kite and ties it to a chair leg, so it can fly out of the window. However, in standing on the chair to complete a tower of beer cans, Courgette knocks them through the opening leading to his room and, when his mother climbs the ladder to remonstrate with him, he slams the trapdoor shut and clings to his kite in dread in a corner.

Convinced he has murdered his mother, Courgette is interviewed by Raymond (Nick Offerman), a kindly cop who reassures him that he will be safe at a home for orphaned children run by Miss Paterson (also Blakelee). As he arrives at Fontaines in a police car with the kite flying from the backseat, Courgette sees lots of faces peering from an upper storey window. Raymond promises to visit, as Miss Rosy (Ellen Page) takes Courgette to the dormitory and he places his only belongings - the kite and a beer can - in the drawer under his bed. He is then introduced to his roommates, who are taking a class with Mr Paul (Will Forte), and Simon (Romy Beckman) not only mocks the newcomer for having a potato head, but he also pulls his chair away when he goes to sit down.

Simon also gives Courgette a hard time over supper and vows to discover the reason why he's been sent to the home. So, Courgette goes to bed early and is surprised when Rosy kisses him on the temple, as he is so unused to affection. However, Simon keeps him awake for most of the night by flashing a torch at him and, the next morning, he steals the kite to play in the yard with Ahmed (Barry Mitchell) and Georgie (Finn Robbins). They get into a fight and Simon is so impressed with Courgette for not ratting on him that they chat under a tree. Simon explains that his parents were drug addicts before revealing that Beatrice (Olivia Bucknor) was left behind when her mother was deported back to Africa, Georgie couldn't be left with an obsessive compulsive mom, Ahmed was made homeless after his father was arrested for shoplifting essentials and Alice (Clara Young) was rescued from the predatory dad, who is now behind bars. Having heard these stories, Courgette admits to accidentally killing his mother and Simon shrugs, as he concludes (while throwing a stone at a tweeting bird) that they are all at Fontaines because there is no one left to love them.

When Raymond comes to visit, Courgette describes his daily routine and how Georgie (who always has a plaster on his forehead) eats toothpaste and throws up in class. As he listens, Raymond gets water-bombed by Ahmed, who hates cops because they took his father away. But Courgette is distracted by the arrival of 10 year-old Camille (Ness Krell), who has been deposited at the home by her short-fused Aunt Ida (Amy Sedaris). She bundles Courgette into a cupboard in order to hide from Ida and he likes her even more when she gives Simon as good as he gets at dinnertime. He gets his revenge in the boys' dorm by teasing Courgette for being in love before launching into a hilarious account what grown-ups get up to in bed and how it involves a lot of male wiggling, female agreeing and body part exploding before they both fall asleep.

Curious to know why Camille is at Fontaines, Courgette and Simon sneak into the office after lights out and learn that she saw her father murdering her mother in a crime passionnel before killing himself. But, even though she has been through such a trauma, Camille soon comes to list herself as `sunny' on the mood indicator chart on the cloakroom wall before rushing out to join her new friends on a minibus ride to the mountains for a skiing trip with Paul and Rosy. A pushy mum accuses Ahmed of stealing her son's red-tinted goggles, but he cheerfully gives them away and Ahmed builds a snow bunny, while Beatrice and Alice make a snowman. However, Simon crashes into it during a sledge race with Courgette and Camille and everyone laughs at him.

As darkness falls, Paul plays DJ and the children dance beneath a glitter ball, with Simon trying to be cool with his moves. Unable to sleep. Courgette and Camille slip outside the chalet and he gives her a paper boat as a late birthday present. He admits to sneaking a look at her record, but she feels safe at the home and is glad to have met him. They lie in the snow before returning to the dormitory with armfuls of the stuff for an epic snowball fight. Courgette looks fondly out of the window when they drive away the next morning and kisses the snoozing Camille on the brow before holding her hand for the journey home.

In his next letter to Raymond, Courgette reveals that Rosy and Paul are going to have a baby and he includes a cheekily naive drawing of their carers in the all-together. He also enthuses about Camille. But she is less than thrilled (while reading Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis) to get a visit from Aunt Ida, who is keen for her to come home so that she can get her hands on some money. She hides in her cupboard and confides in Courgette that she would rather kill her aunt or herself than live with her. Consequently, when Courgette is allowed to stay with Raymond for the weekend, he smuggles Camille into his bag and it's only when they are halfway home that she gives herself away. Miss Paterson allows her to stay and they pay a visit to Courgette's old apartment before enjoying themselves at the funfair. Following a ride on the ghost train, Camille proves a sure shot on the rifle range and she wins a teddy bear. But she feels sad because her father taught her how to use a gun and she knows what they are capable of doing.

Raymond shows them the cactus-filled bedroom (which used to belong to the son who moved away with his mother) and they are playing on a swing outside when Ida arrives to drag Camille home. She vows to keep hold of her this time, but, even though, Raymond has other ideas, Courgette is too miserable to be consoled. The others are also upset, with Ahmed suggesting they go on hunger strike. But Simon has smuggled his mini-tape recorder inside the paper boat that Camille left behind and he persuades Ida to pass it on. She uses it to record Ida threatening her and plays it for the judge, who decides that Camille should stay at Fontaines.

During a fancy dress celebration, however, Simon overhears Raymond telling Courgette that he has arranged to foster him and Camille. But, even though he is sad to lose a buddy, he urges Courgette to take the chance because so few people want to care for kids after they're no longer small and cute. They hug, while striving to remain macho, and Simon keeps a stiff upper lip when the time comes to say goodbye. Yet, it's clear to see his pain, as he closes the gates and chases the others back inside. He keeps his mood marker on cloudy for a few days, but cheers up after Courgette sends a letter full of drawings and Rosy gives birth to baby Anthony (just as the chicks hatch in the nest in the courtyard tree) and the kids are amazed that she has every intention of loving him even if he turns into the smelliest, noisiest and most annoying child in the world.

Charmingly designed by Claude Barras and animated over three years in a pseudo-stop-motion style by Kim Keukelaire, the blue-haired, big-eyed Courgette and his pals are pretty irresistible and Céline Sciamma gives them plenty of trenchantly poignant and acerbically witty things to say. She also deftly sketches in characteristics like Alice using her fringe to cover a scar beneath her left eye, while Beatrice rushes to the door in the hope of seeing her mother each time a car pulls up outside. The bedwetting Ahmed and the plaster-wearing Georgie also have their quirks, as they try to stay on the right side of the temperamental Simon and provide Courgette and Camille with unstinting support. But Barras and Sciamma are also prepared to be a little risqué, with the nocturnal sex ed discussion presaging a stairwell glimpse of Aunt Ida's undies and some candid sketches of Rosy and Paul preparing to make a baby. However, there's nothing salacious about these impish details, which greatly enhance the sense of insecurity and innocence that cocoons the kids as they try to come to terms with their situations and emotions.

Having already added Césars for Best Animated Feature and Screenplay to its Oscar nomination, this considered slice of social realism (which Barras has dubbed `Ken Loach for kids') is destined to become a cult hit with children of all ages in this country. Some have criticised the easy way in which difficult issues are resolved. But Sciamma can hardly be accused of ducking the grimmer realities facing modern tweenagers, while Ludovic Chemarin's settings show the institution as spartan, but cosy and safe. With the amusing exception of Amy Sedaris's hissable aunt, the vocal work is admirably restrained, while the ghost train ride neatly satirises the gimmicky theme park POV sequences that have become de rigueur in Hollywood animations. There's even a cheeky homage to the Ice Age franchise in the form of the nut-scarfing squirrel during the piste episode. But it's the inspired correlation between concept, script and execution that sets this apart and will leave many hoping for a sequel.

Finally, this week, the on-going stand-off between Israel and Palestine is viewed through the eyes of those who have seen the error of their past ways in Stephen Apkon and Andrew Young's Disturbing the Peace. Showing as part of the Dochouse initiative, this is primarily an account of the formation in 2006 of Combatants for Peace. But, while they may not offer much by way of historico-political context, the co-directors and editor Ori Derdikman ably combine archive material, reconstruction, reportage and the personal testimony of eight individuals from either side of the divide to provide a human insight into a seemingly intractable problem.

The first two people we meet are ex-Israeli soldier Cheen Alon, whose Zionist grandfather was spared the Holocaust after settling in Palestine in the 1930s, and Jamel Qassas, a resident of the Dheisheh refugee camp to the south of the West Bank town of Bethlehem, whose grandfather was killed in 1948 when he refused to leave the family home in the village of Al-Qbeibah in order to make way for Israeli settlers. Alon recalls being rushed into an air-raid shelter during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and watching his father go off to fight against people the young Alon suddenly realised were trying to kill him.

Now based in Jerusalem, Avner Wishnitzer grew up on a kibbutz and never got to know the uncle who was killed in the conflict. But Qassas also lost an uncle serving with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and he could not understand as a child why it was not possible simply to return to land that had been so unfairly stolen from them. Mohammed Owedah remembers seeing houses being bulldozed in Silwan and footage of the event is cross-cut with a news report about 16 Israeli teenagers being gunned down in their school by Arab `terrorists'. But Shifa Al-Qudsi has her own memories of young men like Ibrahim Mansour being killed in Tulkarem, while Sulaiman Khatib was so moved by the lyrics of the revolutionary songs he heard in his Ramallah bedroom that he felt compelled to join the liberation cause after seeing news coverage of the Sabra and Shatila camp massacres in 1982, as he was convinced that fighting back was the only way to smash the oppressive grip around his homeland.

At 18, Alon and Weishnitzer were called up to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and served in the West Bank. But, at the same age, Qassas saw his 14 year-old brother Nasser shot dead for breaking into a panicked run after being caught visiting relatives during a curfew. He, Owedah and Khatib remember the sense of power throwing stones at IDF patrols gave him. Yet Alon admits that he was bemused why the Palestinians should hate the Israelis so much and Maia Hascal from Nofit remembers being convinced of the rectitude of her mission, as the enemy would slaughter them unless they were contained.

After a while, stones were no longer enough for Khatib. But he was arrested for stabbing an Israeli in a bid to steal a gun and he was taken into custody around the time Tel Avivian Assaf Yacobovitz began serving as an air force flight controller. But the bombing raids claimed the lives of innocents like Al-Qudsi's teenage cousins and sister-in-law, who became so enraged after her daughter was forced to witness the death of school friends that she decided to become a suicide bomber.

Following news reports on the aftermath of various attacks in Israel, Al-Qudsi admits that she fretted about the fate of her mother and daughter, but felt she had no option as she was trapped in a `cemetery of the living'. She tried to explain her reasoning to her child, but was arrested before she could embark on her mission and we see a TV news interview of her defiantly insisting she is a freedom fighter and not a terrorist. Meanwhile, Alon had been taken aback when he was sent to arrest the person who threw a Molotov cocktail at his vehicle and he found himself taking away a 10 year-old boy. Yacobovitz also had an epiphanal moment when he saw `the bleeding reality' of the raid he had just co-ordinated on the Gaza Strip.

While in detention, Khatib had his mind opened by a screening of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), while Al-Qudsi found herself offering solace to a guard whose brother had been killed by a suicide bomber. Alon was further disconcerted when he was on checkpoint duty and had to turn back a taxi full of sick children while his wife was on the phone asking him to collect their daughter from kindergarten. Qassas was similarly unsettled when his mother wept for some Israeli children killed in a bus bombing because it reminded her of the pain of losing her own son and because it was time people on both sides realised that blood does not have two colours. And Wishnitzer came to see that things had to change when he joined his sister in taking blankets to Palestinians who had been left homeless after a village clearance and he saw IDF troops kicking Israeli civilians for wanting to help fellow human beings.

Consequently, Alon and Wishnitzer put their names to a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon informing him that they could no longer be part of an Israeli army that was being used as an instrument of oppression. They were vilified for their stance and branded traitors to the State of Israel. But Khatib and Al-Qudsi had emerged from prison keen to follow the likes of Gandhi and Mandela in finding an alternative form of resistance. So, in 2005, they contacted the refuseniks and arranged a meeting outside Jerusalem. Taking a risk in travelling without any protection, Alon, Wishnitzer, Yacobovitz and Hascal felt fear and loathing on coming face to face with Khatib and Al-Qudsi. But, while they realised they all had it within them to kill strangers, they also felt the need to trust each other and start a healing process by confessing to past crimes and accepting that no side had the monopoly on right or suffering.

Nine years after first embracing the enemy's humanity, Combatants for Peace has grown into potent movement and Apkon and Young film the discussions and workshops that take place during a meeting. They also see the preparations being made for a demonstration around the time that Secretary of State John Kerry kickstarted peace negotiations. But their actions are contentious, with Qassas arguing with wife Fatima about betrayed principles and her reluctance to let their young daughters join his protest when they should be learning the truth about the Nakba. Al-Qudsi's daughter, Dudu, is more succinct, as she tells her mother she would shoot her if she told her today that she was going to blow herself up.

On the day of the march, the Israelis walked from the West towards the Wall, while the Palestinians came from the East. They stopped opposite each other at a wired-off gap in the towering blocks and re-staged Yasser Arafat's failed bid to get the United Nations to vote for a Palestinian homeland. When it comes to Israel to respond, the protesters call for `two states for two peoples' and start banging drums, blowing whistles and brandishing banners and puppets. But, suddenly, the IDF arrives in the small no man's land between the borders and Alon realises that the soldiers look like the prisoners trapped in a false reality and he calls on them to abandon their arms and work towards a peaceful settlement.

On Memorial Day, they host a joint commemoration, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu contributing a video message in which he urges them not to give up if the going gets tough because they are part of one family. His reminder that ordinary people alone can bring about change hits hard when Kerry abandons his attempts to broker a peace because Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas keep repeating the same mantras about why peace is an impossibility. Within hours, rockets began flying from Gaza and reprisal bombings were launched for endangering Tel Aviv. Watching the news coverage, Owedah wonders how Combatants can keep preaching its message when no one wants to listen. But, during an online conference call, members from both sides agree the need to persist and arrange a demonstration for the weekend.

They are met with a counter-protest of patriotic zealots invoking curses on them for betraying their heritage. But they stand firm with their Palestinian friends in the face of the provocation and Khatib and Qassas speak with passion and pride in their cause of co-existence. As the film ends, Alon, Qassas, Wishnitzer, Al-Qudsi, Yacobovitz and Owedah reaffirm their commitment to a peaceful solution, with the latter claiming word of mouth to loved ones will spread the message until the whole world hears it and war will be ended in the blink of an eye.

Such positivity is remarkable considering the insurmountable problems this noble movement faces in getting its voice heard. One only has to see the hatred in the eyes of their civilian opponents to realise what they are up against. But Young and Apkon spend far too little time on this aspect of the situation for its enormity to sink in. Focusing on the origins of Combatants for Peace, the first two-thirds of the documentary are riveting, as four members from each side of the conflict reflect on their conversion to non-violent tactics. Yet, while it conveys the urgency of campaign, the more recent footage (following the breakdown of talks in 2014) feels fragmented and poorly contextualised. Moreover, it seems unbalanced, as we are only shown the Israeli street reaction to the initiative and nothing of any Palestinian hostility. This is a shame, as Apkon and Young do such a fine job in persuading their courageous subjects to share their stories on camera and in highlighting the universality of suffering in a war zone.