Amal, the latest from Moroccan-Belgian director Jawad Rhalib, works as both an urgent philosophical dilemma and a tightly-wound thriller. It drops us in the middle of a secondary school class body that is starkly divided and introduces a catalyst that inflames this volatile setting. Set in Brussels, the school where idealistic, progressive teacher Amal works is an oasis in a conservative Muslim community. When one student is accused of homosexuality, dangerous views and violent rhetoric breach the neutral territory of the school grounds. Amal finds herself on the front lines, trying to instill both compassion and logic in students who are being indoctrinated and radicalized by a hard-line religion teacher. Lubna Azabal (Incendies, The Blue Caftan) holds the center as the eponymous character, a defiant educator willing and sometimes eager to provoke. Intellectually curious but also righteously humane, Amal is a sharp, tense treatise that comes to a fine point. ~OO

Also screens on Monday, October 21 | 7:15 PM