But in a darkened cinema, when being under a projector beam feels more like being under a spell, you absolutely can.

After a freak lethal motorcycle accident that Thien (Lê Phong Vu) witnesses without knowing who was involved (an example of the film’s superb long-take approach where the cutting is slow but every frame packed with incident) he discovers the victim was his sister-in-law. 

Thien now must take her body and her surviving five-year-old son to their countryside hometown. During his meditative, wandering visit, Thien wrestles with his own agnosticism in the face of others’ religious beliefs, summons memories of his long-disappeared brother, and reconnects with a former girlfriend who now lives as a nun at a Christian church and school.

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For information on the full BFF23 programme visit: www.belfastfilmfestival.org