Crossing

After her sister dies, Lia, a retired teacher, arrives in a village on the outskirts of Georgia to search for Tekla, her sister’s daughter. But the girl’s name doesn’t inspire much sympathy in the village. Achi, a local boy, agrees to tell Lia where Tekla is—on the condition that she takes him with her on the journey. Together, they set off for Istanbul to search the city’s transgender communities, where Tekla may have gone. We already know Levan Akin from his beautiful previous film And Then We Danced; here too, he offers an empathetic and sensitive perspective on places where love collides with the bonds of tradition. Thanks to powerful performances by the lead actors, the film is “seductive, fragmented, involving” (Screen).