This austere look at a culture of bullying is the film you won’t be able to shake at this year’s VIFF. Director Emir Baigazin maintains a cold, artistic remove from the brutal story of an odd teen who is relentlessly picked on by the elaborate gang network at his uniformed boys school. As his few misfit friends fall victim to the beatings and stealing, the enigmatic lead character starts to move from victim to a more sinister force. But where the film becomes truly Kafka-esque is when the state becomes involved, and the real bullies go into devastating action. Deeply disturbing and hypercontrolled; every frame, from the symbolic butchering of a sheep in a snowswept yard to the backs of uniformed schoolboys huddled in a secret basement meeting, is a bleak piece of art.

Vancity, September 28 (12:20 p.m.); International Village, September 28 (9 p.m.) and October 3 (10:50 a.m.).