Laurie Marian Baranyay (Canada)
The filmic equivalent of a sucker punch to the gut, Laurie Maria Baranyay's wrenching, politically incorrect Perspective Canada debut is a Cassavetes-inspired digital-video experiment that sets out to alienate and transfix its unaware viewers at the same time. Baranyay writes, directs, produces and stars (alongside her own mother) as the lead character, Mikey, baring not only her skin but her soul in the Canadian film most likely to divide audiences and critics at this year's festival. Such divisiveness can only be positive. A no-holds-barred chronicle of a young woman's harrowing, completely out-of-control evening - which includes a disappointed family, an abusive boyfriend and too much drugs and alcohol for anyone's own good. Bordering on the experimental and shot on the cheap, Walk Backwards may be exceedingly difficult to watch, but it's got an emotional honesty that undermines the vast majority of the films it stands alongside. - MarkP.

(Tues., Sept. 11, 9 p.m., Cumberland; tburs., Sept. 13, 3:45 p.m., ROM)