NECKTIE YOUTH Breakthrough

Twenty-three-year-old writer-director Sibs Shongwe-La Mer referenced a painful loss as a teen to make this personal, stylized debut. The film offers an authentic perspective of life in Jo’burg, or Johannesburg, South Africa, as he knew it. The film begins on a harrowing note: A wealthy white teen has hanged herself from a tree, using her school necktie. To make matters worse, her death has been live-streamed. From there, the filmmaker follows other teens peripherally connected to the girl, all of whom make up a contemporary génération perdue — young people who are wrecked and defeated, unsure of the present and the future. With polished black-and-white cinematography, the film rings true beyond its focus on post-apartheid South Africa, and speaks more generally to a millennial tragedy. — Wonsun Choi