Leaving January 1

Directed by Alice Diop | 97 mins | 2016
At the end of one of the corridors of the Avicennes Hospital in Bobigny, just outside of Paris, is a medical clinic for refugees: one of just a few in France, and the no-frills setting of this bracing piece of direct cinema. The dispassionate manner of the overworked medical professionals—and of the filmmaking—stands in contrast to both the intensity and import of their work.