A middle-aged woman living alone in a border town is diagnosed with terminal cancer, befriends an ex-con, and convinces him to drive her to a faith healer in Marfa, TX in Minervini’s graceful and generous feature debut.

Bearing traces of Huck Finn and Antoine Doinel, Minervini’s second feature casts nonprofessionals to magnificently truthful effect in the story of a nameless adolescent hero caring for his substance-abusing mother.

Q&A with director Roberto Minervini at 7pm screenings on Friday and Saturday.

Minervini’s third film is a documentary-style portrait of sheltered teenage girl, one of 12 children from a devout Christian goat-farming family in rural Texas, who finds herself quietly drawn to a young man from a vastly different background.