The Hong Kong International Film Festival is in full swing. Running to April 8th, #HKIFF48 is showcasing over 190 films from 62 countries and regions, including five world premieres, six international premieres and 64 Asian premieres.

DEAR JASSI might just be one of the festival’s best entries. Based on events that took place in India and Canada from 1994 to 2000, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, where it took home the Platform Prize.

The story revolves around Jaswinder “Jassi” Sidhu, a young woman from a wealthy Canadian-Indian family, who visits her relatives in India’s Punjab state and falls for Sukhwinder “Mithoo” Sidhu, a poor, bee (motorized rickshaw) driver who lives next door. It’s William Shakespeare meets Franz Kafka as the star-crossed lovers not only have to contend with Jassi’s family who wants her to marry someone rich but also the corrupt Punjab police force, a shady but well-intentioned pharmacist, a swindling travel agent and general Canadian bureaucracy. Director Tarsem Singh leans into the parallels of this real-life romance-tragedy with Shakespeare’s famous tale, and bookends his film with a pair of Sikh minstrels who introduce and close out the story. Like Romeo and Juliet, it doesn’t end well for Mithoo and Jassi as rural Punjab is a much more brutal place than Verona ever was. DEAR JASSI is a film that will stick with you long after you see it.

KIDNAPPED (Rapito) is another film that’s based on a true story. This time the events take place in the Papal States in the 1850s when the Roman Catholic Church is in charge and Pope Pius IX is the sovereign ruler. Edgardo Mortara is the sixth child of a Jewish family in Bologna. As a sick infant, he is secretly baptized by the family’s Christian maid for fear that if he should die, he will end up in limbo. Six years later, word about his baptism reaches the Bolognese office of the Holy Inquisition and the Church moves to remove him from his family and send him to Rome where he will be schooled to serve the Church. Although his parents try to get him released, their efforts only strengthen the resolve of the Pope to keep him there.

This is a very sad chapter in Judeo-Christian relations but 84-year-old director and co-writer Marco Bellocchio, who has an illustrious career spanning seven decades, takes a heavy-handed approach with his material, laying the schmaltz on thick and letting the music take the lead. Similar to what we saw with the pidgin English subtitles in BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE, here, Bellocchio peppers his English subtitles with Yiddish. Small problem though. The Mortaras were Sephardi, not Ashkenazi Jews. They wouldn’t have spoken Yiddish. They’d have spoken Ladino.

EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING (Magyarázat mindenre) is the third feature film by Hungarian director Gábor Reisz, whose 2014 debut feature, FOR SOME INEXPLICABLE REASON, became a cult film in Hungary.

Eighteen-year-old Abel Trem is studying for his final exams at high school but his head isn’t in the game. Instead, he’s focused on classmate Janka, whose love interests lie elsewhere. When he fails his history exam, he blames it on his liberal-leaning teacher Jakab, who previously had a run-in with Abel’s father, György, a man who is quite proud of the direction his country has taken. Word spreads that Abel failed his exam because Jakab didn’t like the nationalist pin the young man wore on his jacket lapel and Erika, a young reporter with a pro-government newspaper, publicises the lie, turning Abel into an overnight cause célèbre for the right.

Reisz pokes fun at the current state of politics and political discourse in Victor Orban’s Hungary, with obvious lessons for people living in other countries who are flirting with, or may already have elected, far-right populist politicians. Unfortunately, EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING is about 30 minutes longer than it needs to be, with scenes that do little to propel his thesis forward. The film’s closing scene, too, seems like a bit of a cop out, especially given the climactic events that lead up to it.

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