The theft of a blood-stained machete from the local marketplace sets young best friends Munyurangabo (a Tutsi) and Sangwa (a Hutu), on a startling journey of homecoming and personal responsibility through the haunted countryside of Rwanda, a nation still healing from genocide barely a decade old. Their ultimate goal at first unclear, the duo detours into Sangwa’s village, which has seen harder times since the youth abandoned his family three years earlier to make his own way in the city. While Sangwa, sobered by the guilt-ridden welcome of his forgotten family, attempts to assuage his unresolved grief through the effort of honest work for his father, unflinching Ngabo yearns to continue on their way in order to confront the Hutu murderer of his own father, whose face he no longer even remembers. Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung achieves a stunning authenticity, foregoing a mere re-enactment of violent episodes in favor of a confidently stark and softly guided, intimate portrait of human fragility infused with global resonance. Grappling with the delicate burden of history, Chung has built a masterful debut, seething with a rare yet simple poetry that is all at once minimal and momentous. (97 min, in Kinyarwanda with English subtitles, Film Movement)

Showtimes: 2:15 pm, 4:40 pm, 7:10 pm, 9:25 pm. Saturday and Sunday matinees at 11:55 am.

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Written by Lee Isaac Chung. Photographed by Lee Isaac Chung. With Jeff Rutagengwa, Eric Ndorunkundiye, Jean Marie Vianney Nkurikiyinka.