Vodka Lemon

A craving for momentum amid drab, wintry stasis in an impoverished Kurdish village in Armenia is gently relieved by an affair of the heart in this affecting, unassuming romantic comedy by exiled Iraqi Kurd director Hiner Saleem. In staging a hesitant pas de deux - between Hado, a pensioner, and the likewise widowed Nina, who staffs a roadside stall that sells nothing but the titular liquor - Vodka Lemon recalls Drifting Clouds and indeed the Kaurismäki-derived dry absurdism of Bent Hamer's similarly taciturn and snowbound Kitchen Stories.