By Betsy Sherman

Part three of a run-down of live-action narrative shorts. As usual for the IFFBoston, the quality is high, with intriguing subject matter and technical polish.

Part One and Part Two

Shorts Dartmouth: Narrative Saturday April 25 at 12 p.m., Tuesday, April 28 at 5:30 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre.

In another high-quality program of shorts in this year’s IFFBoston the theme might be summed up as “putting on the squeeze.” The total running time is 73 minutes. Expect in-person appearances by some of the filmmakers at the screenings.

A scene from Zane Rizvi-Riemer’s Debut I Owe. Photo: IFFBoston

Debt I Owe—This earnest story of gambling and its consequences centers on Amir (Wasim Azeez), a Pakistani immigrant raising two daughters while running a restaurant in Queens. Betting on the ponies has become an addiction; the children begin to wonder about who that man is who’s  been following their father. As Amir brainstorms for a way to repay his debt, a red velvet bag becomes a charged object. Containing his late wife’s jewelry, it is a family legacy steeped in tradition. He forbids the girls—who are meant to inherit it—from playing with its contents. But will he place that bag in strangers’ hands? Writer-director Zane Rizvi-Riemer skillfully orchestrates the adrenaline-churning highs and lows of the piece, and Azeez gives an affecting performance as a good man who has taken a wrong turn.

Family Sunday—This pungent, artful depiction of a troubling situation in writer-director Luis Gerardo Del Razo’s Mexico City is one of the top narrative shorts in the ’26 festival. The title is ironic, as the film penetrates a façade of everyday leisure in a park before arriving at a zone where drug cartel hit men extort small business owners for protection money. The film’s power lies in how the information is delivered: with the precision of Jonathan Glazer, Del Razo sends his camera on a slow, ominous drift toward the building in front of which the action will unfold. To absorb shots that are both lengthy and distant, the viewer must lean into the film. What begins as a portrait of the victims’ isolation shifts into something quite different when the idea of community coalesces. Del Razo is in the MFA in Film program at Emerson College. Spanish with subtitles.

A scene from Sebastian Kim’s Transaction Cancelled. Photo: IFFBoston

Transaction Cancelled—Sebastian Kim wrote, directed, and stars as Ben in this flavorful little nightmare set on a sunny day in New York City’s Chinatown. The unwelcome title phrase greets him on an ATM as we hear a bookie’s terrifying threats about what will happen if Ben doesn’t pay a ten-thousand-dollar debt. The suit-wearing young man lies to, and wriggles away from, those close to him. Rapid editing and a variety of camera angles reflect Ben’s panic, while the urgent score incorporates street musicians seen on screen. When he hits a brick wall, Ben may be considering a change of m.o. Around him, people go about just another day, as portrayed with ironic humor in the end-credits sequence.

Winter After Winter—In this Toronto-set film written and directed by Brandon Kaufman, twenty-something Nell (Sofia Banzhaf) drives around the city she has returned to after six years away. She spots her high school friend Jackie (Nina Kiri) walking in the cold and offers her a ride. Nell happily chauffeurs Jackie on errands throughout the day. A painter who downplays her art, Jackie works as an executive assistant to a “business lady” who is out of town. Nell is invigorated by being back home, but the revelation of a shared tragedy in the friends’ youth may explain Jackie’s feelings of stagnation—she is the one who has lived among the reminders. The handling of the reveal is perhaps too subtle: a long shot of Nell’s car in a snowy field is visually right for the mood, but the dialogue within is a bit too oblique.

The Ambassador’s Daughter was not available for preview.

Betsy Sherman has written about movies, old and new, for The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, and The Improper Bostonian, among others. She holds a degree in archives management from Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science. When she grows up, she wants to be Barbara Stanwyck.