Five to watch: Sunday, December 10

Our pick of today's films at the Dubai International Film Festival

A Ciambra. Courtesy DIFF

A Ciambra

Jonas Carpignano directs Italy’s submission for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, the tale of a streetwise 14-year old Romany boy who has to grow up quickly when his older brother mysteriously disappears.

Vox 6, Mall of the Emirates, 3.30pm

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Faces Places

This French documentary teams up the unlikely pairing of French new-wave cinema legend Agnes Varda and enfant terrible of the graffiti scene, enigmatic "photograffeur" JR. Together, the duo travel through France in a van, meeting and photographing the country-folk and ordinary people they encounter along the way. The results are compelling and often beautiful. At Cannes this year, the French Writers Society jury awarded the film the prestigious Golden Eye, or L'Oeil d'Or award, for best documentary across all official selections.

Vox 1, Mall of the Emirates, 6.45pm

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Where To?

Where To? is the 60-year-old directorial masterpiece from Georges Nasser. Dubbed the grandfather of Lebanese cinema, Nasser returns with the restored print version of his classic, a film that ushered Lebanon into the Cannes Film Festival for the first time in 1957.

The Beach, JBR, 7.30pm

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The Shape of Water

Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro returns with a typically weird, extraordinary piece of cinematic art. Sally Hawkins stars as Eliza, a mute cleaning lady working in a Baltimore government research laboratory in 1962 who stumbles upon a strange marine creature that is being experimented on. Through their respective limitations, they begin to communicate and Eliza starts to fall in love.

Madinat Arena, 9pm

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Wajib

Annemarie Jacir returns to the festival with Wajib, winner of the Don Quijote Award at the Locarno Festival and this year's Palestinian Oscar entry. Wajib follows a day in the life of Abu Shadi and his son Shadi. With his sister's wedding a month away, Shadi travels to help his father in the customary hand-delivery of the wedding invitations. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head, challenging their fragile and very different lives.

Madinat Theatre, 10.15pm