It’s 1835, and Costandin (Teodor Corban) and Ionita (Mihai Comanoiu), a police constable and his son, are crossing a barren Eastern European land on horseback. The pair are on the hunt for Carfin (Toma Cuzin), a ‘gypsy slave’ who has escaped from his nobleman master after apparently having an affair with the nobleman’s wife – but their odyssey through the region of Wallachia takes a series of darker turns.

A powerful and moving parable about late-feudal Europe, Aferim! (‘Bravo!’, more or less) won director Radu Jude the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. Informed by historical power structures and hierarchies, the black-and-white Balkan Western brings the cacophony of 19th-century Europe strikingly to life – and makes plain that many of its darker aspects remain disturbingly relevant today.