Sometimes the soul

In "A Knot of Tears," a woman's locked-up life is transformed by a parrot who tells tales; her story becomes a subtle and surprising meditation on the necessity of being true to oneself and others. In "Rusina, Not Quite in Love," a strange and lovely retelling of the story of the Beauty and the Beast, a young woman escapes family and society to find consolation and beauty in nature and its muse.

In each case, women of very different backgrounds - one aristocratic, one impoverished - find solitary spaces from which they can emerge as artists and shapers of their own destinies.