Qiu Sheng, 2018, China/Taiwan, 118 minutes)

A hit at Locarno and New Directors/New Films, Suburban Birds, the debut film from Qiu Sheng, was called a cross between Stand by Me and The Trial by The Hollywood Reporter upon its premiere. The story follows two young men named Hao—one a schoolboy who finds his friends keep turning up missing, the other an engineer who is investigating a series of sinkholes that have been appearing around a rapidly growing Chinese city. See this one early—it’s the type of film you’re likely to want to come back and catch again before its run with us ends.

In Mandarin with English subtitles.