film

Among its many, many other virtues, the Sants bar and cinema co-operative Zumzeig is great at bringing films like this to the big screen in Barcelona – under-the-radar gems from around the world released a few months or maybe a year ago in the UK and US, that the city's other cinemas may have overlooked.

Black Dog, directed by Guan Hu, is a poetic drama set on the edge of the Gobi Desert just before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Lang (Eddie Peng) is a former stunt motorcyclist who has recently been released from prison and takes a job with the local dog-catching squad tasked with clearing stray dogs before the world descends on China – with a particular bounty on one black hound who's as scrawny as he is pesky. Amid stunning desert vistas a profound bond develops between the two in a film that expertly blends elements of western, noir, crime thriller and social drama.