Scrappy low-budget filmmaking has a new kid on the block in actor, director, and writer Kit Zauhar. Zeroing in on an Asian-American student’s premature case of postgraduate drift, she brings an altogether different charm to independent cinema with her wry, plucky, and perceptive first film.

Intimacy is brilliantly weaponized in this standout film from American rising star Kit Zauhar. Assembling a chamber drama with staggering performances and bruising humor, she twists space and sound into battle zones of emotion where closeness is at once bitter and erotic, touching and barbed.