Some of the plot elements (the boy is the son of a plastic surgeon evaluating Alex without her advance knowledge; Alex’s father saves sea turtles whose fins have been mutilated by boats) are less subtle and more contrived than the characters and the performances. The setting, a fishing village on the Uruguayan seacoast, is unusual and lovely. The ending hits just the right bittersweet note. The film, novelist and screenwriter Lucía Puenzo’s directorial debut, deserves to find a wide audience.

Moving Midway is a marvelous documentary that ranges far beyond its nominal subject – the literal moving, on wheels, of an historic plantation home away from suburban creep into a more rural area – into aspects of history and sociology, family and friendship. Director Godfrey Cheshire revisits Midway, the North Carolina plantation home where he spent several childhood summers, and begins a very personal, discursive look at The Plantation, in myth (think Gone with the Wind) and reality, at race, and at his own relatives, not all of whom come off favorably. Along the way he discovers an African-American cousin, the descendant of slaves owned by his great-grandfather (who slept with a cook), and they strike up a really moving friendship. Technically adequate but far from slick, the movie reaches audiences on multiple levels, and is both thought-provoking and smashingly entertaining.

Trouble the Water covers some of the same ground as Spike Lee’s monumental When the Levees Broke, but whereas Lee built multiple Hurricane Katrina stories into an emotionally overwhelming mosaic of pain, sorrow and anger, this new film follows one family’s story, in depth. Directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal discovered a couple who had taken home videos of their family’s encounter with the storm in one of New Orleans' poorest, hardest hit neighborhoods. This footage, though often shaky and grainy, serves as a very effective core. Then Lessin and Deal show us what happened to Kimberly and Scott Roberts afterward.

These very real people also make utterly riveting movie “characters.”  You experience their anger, frustration and hope along with them, fueled by the bureaucracy and prejudice they encounter. By the time, near the end of the film, Kimberly performs her own song “I Know I’m Amazin’,” the audience is completely entranced. This identification with the people in the film was taken a step further at the New Directors screening, when Kimberly and Scott (and their 10-week-old baby girl) took the stage with the directors afteward, and received a rapturous standing ovation. A commercial release seems likely, but has not yet been confirmed.