Mardan

The title character of this intriguing, smoldering drama suffers, with his younger brother, a childhood catastrophe beside a meandering river. This leads more or less directly to his meandering adulthood as a sullen loner and corrupt policeman on the take from the smugglers who regularly crisscross the stunning Kurdish border region joining Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. When a local tunnel worker goes missing on a lonely stretch of road, Mardan is tasked with locating the man on behalf of his beautiful, guileless wife—setting up Mardan for tests of fraternal instinct, albeit in complex ways that pull us along in a dream of guilt, remorse, and passion. (Mill Valley Film Festival)