Our Lady of the Chinese Shop

Religious kitsch, mysticism, cynical exploitation, disempowerment and post-colonial collapse characterise Angolan Ery Claver's raw and atmospheric feature debut.

Dominga's life is dominated by her husband’s illness and the grief of her lost daughter. When a leak causes the ceiling of their apartment to collapse, it may not be a plumber that is needed, but higher-level intervention. While Dominga fights existential and material despair, a young haggard man is roaming the streets of Luanda in search of a lost dog. In the midst of dispair, a plastic Madonna-figurine brings hope to the defeated, power to a wannabe-saviour and, of course, a fortune to the seemingly indifferent shopkeeper who sells them.

• Katarina Hedrén