A chance encounter between Stefan (Stefan Gota), a Romanian construction worker, and Shuxiu (Liyo Gong), a Belgian-Chinese bryologist (an expert in the study of moss and lichen), is to prove transformative for both characters in Bas Devos’s exquisite miniature, a deserving winner of both the jury and Fipresci prize for best film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters section.

As the film begins, Stefan is planning a trip home, though his motives for going, and his intentions to ever return, remain opaque. Clues can be gathered from his conversations with his sister Anca, a nurse, and Shuxiu, whom he meets at a Chinese restaurant where she works for her aunt while working on her doctorate. Shot on 16mm and presented in the boxy 4.3 ratio, Davos’s deceptively simple film makes extraordinary use of Brussels’ verdant hinterlands.

Notes by David O’Mahony