The entire lineup is bulletproof, but a veteran star and three sensational newcomers provide the best reasons to catch these picks from the Italian Film Festival.

Solo  Laura Morante is a well-loved fixture in Italian cinema, with credits that include Bernardo Bertolucci’s Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man in a career that stretches back to the late ’70s. For her second effort on both sides of the camera, Morante uses fizzy comedy to approach a deeper vein of melancholy, playing Flavia, a twice-divorced mother on the wrong side of middle-aged. As the film makes its quirky way forward, we might forget that it all begins with Flavia observing her own funeral, where an array of exes, even after her death, seemingly fail to appreciate her. If that sounds too gloomy, rest assured that between antic comedy and its hugely appealing star, this is a Solo flight worth taking. January 7 (5 p.m.); January 11 (6:45 p.m.)

Arianna  Ondina Quadri turns in a spectacularly brave performance as the title character, a tellingly androgynous 19-year-old who tremulously informs her mother that “there’s something wrong” after a disastrous first attempt at sex. It’s during a visit to the old family home that Arianna is moved to finally discover why she’s never had a period, an orgasm, or even a gynecologist who hasn’t been assigned to her by a notably too-involved father. At times, Carlo Lavagna’s outstanding debut feature creates the sense that we’re watching body horror given a compassionate rewiring by Eric Rohmer. January 8 (6:50 p.m.)

Indivisible  Conjoined twins Daisy and Viola support their kin, including a gambling-addicted father and pot-addled mom, by singing at church events. The opportunity for surgical separation creates a much more profound split in this dysfunctional setup, which nods (through its character names) to the real-life Hilton sisters, who received a poisonous dose of fame after appearing in Tod Browning’s Freaks. In turn, Indivisible has gothic moments of its own (a church procession after a near drowning has a strikingly macabre quality), but it also has humour, light, and two entrancing leads in Angela and Marianna Fontana. January 12 (6 p.m.)