After uncovering a degraded vinyl album in an abandoned home, three musicians attempt to reimagine one of its songs. Shot on stunning 16mm, Noah Reid, Bahia Watson, and Maxwell McCabe-Lokos star in this wistful dystopian sci-fi that is both hauntingly eerie and will get your foot tapping. LISA HALLER

An intense, compelling, and expertly controlled portrait, Benjamin, Benny, Ben centres on an anxious young man travelling to a job interview who begins to unravel when faced with an unexpected occurrence. LH

Beautifully crafted by Reza Riahi, a painter and filmmaker who was the co–art director on Nora Twomey’s feature The Breadwinner (TIFF 2017), this gorgeous paper-cut animation tells a heart-wrenching story of love, war, and hardship in 13th-century Persia. JASON ANDERSON

In this tense and nuanced drama by Senegalese director Moly Kane, a young woman preparing for her marriage desperately and courageously journeys to erase her past. LH

As a group of misfit teens ransack a mansion, one of them recounts how his past desperation changed him. Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Kelcey Mawema (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before) star in this wickedly cool and mesmerizing thriller, marking a formidable short-film debut by director Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux. LH

In an intense, wild, and raw horror-fantasy, self-taught animator Tank Standing Buffalo bravely dives into his personal experiences in prolonged segregation as a young offender, using the art-form that helped him heal. LH

Set over the course of one wild night at a warehouse party and the more melancholy morning that follows, this drama by France’s Naïla Guiguet is as vivid and vulnerable as its protagonist, played in an extraordinary performance by transgender DJ and model Dustin Muchuvitz. JA