Writer-director Lynne Ramsay’s bracing feature debut offers a look at growing up in squalor in Scotland in the 1970s. Set during a garbage strike, RATCATCHER follows James Gillespie (William Eadie), a 12-year-old boy living in one of Glasgow’s poorer slums, where local gangs and an isolated canal are constant perils. Superbly shot and featuring a mostly nonprofessional cast, this raw, yet poetic drama peppers its bleak social realism with occasional humor to create a soul-crushing portrait of childhood.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: UK

Cost: $12.00 (member); $17.00 (general admission)