The AFI’s European Union Showcase, which may well be the Washington area’s most consistently challenging film festival, is now in its 28th year. The annual slate is a reliable source for both crowd-pleasing fare and provocative experiments that may not get a commercial release. It also gives area moviegoers a jump start on some of this season’s upcoming arthouse favorites, like the Charlotte Rampling domestic drama 45 Years (December 10 and 13); director Paolo Sorrentino’s lushly photographed Youth (December 3); Maggie Smith in the title role of the Alan Bennett adaptation The Lady in the Van (December 6); and the harrowing Holocaust drama Son of Saul (December 7), which is already starting to appear on year-end best of lists.

The festival opens tonight with A Perfect Day, starring Benicio del Toro and Tim Robbins as aid workers trying to retrieve a corpse from a well in the middle of the war-torn Balkans in 1995. Programming runs through December 20th, in the middle of what already promises to be a packed December release schedule. I had a chance to preview a handful of the festival’s more than 50 films and will continue to note highlights in this month’s editions of Popcorn & Candy, but here are some of this week’s most notable titles:

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So many movies, so little time. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands

Director Christian Braad Thomsen’s documentary looks at the career of his friend, the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who directed more than 40 feature films by the time he died at the age of 37. I didn’t get a chance to preview the film, but after it screened at the Berlinale, Slant’s Kenji Fujishimia wrote that, “Thomsen’s documentary is remarkable not only in the way it balances film criticism with personal remembrances, but for the way Thomsen exudes love for Fassbinder even while acknowledging his complex, flawed humanity. That complexity is perhaps best encapsulated by an anecdote Hermann recalls which climaxes with Fassbinder punching her in the face in order to rouse her from a coma—an appalling act that nevertheless suggests a level of genuine affection underlying the surface violence.” This one isn’t likely to get a commercial release, so Fassbinder fans should make a point of seeing this intimate look at one of cinema’s greatest workaholics.

Friday, December 04 at 3 p.m., Sunday, December 6 at 9:30 p.m., and Thursday, December 10 at 9:25 p.m.

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Stanislas Merhar and Lena Paugam (Director’s Fortnight)

In the Shadow of Women

Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and Manon (Clotilde Courau) work on documentary films together, but each takes a lover in this drama from director Philippe Garrel (Jealousy). The film takes its sweet time with its characters, watching them holding hands at the editing deck and following a prospective new lover as she wheels a cart full of archival film reels to her truck (a scene which made me wonder what constitutes best archival practices in France). But for a 73-minute film it seems, like Jealousy before it, much longer. Still, Garrel has his fans, and they won’t be disappointed.

Watch the trailer.
Thursday, December 3 at 5 p.m., Tuesday, December 8 at 9:40 p.m and Thursday, December 10 at 5:10 p.m.

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Quentin Dolmaire and Lou Roy-Lecollinet

My Golden Days

Director Arnaud Desplechin revisits characters he introduced in his 1996 film My Sex Life…or How I Got into an Argument with this prequel set during a 1980s when French kids reaaally liked “Atomic Dog.” Mathieu Amalric, who starred in the 1996 film, returns as Paul Dedalus and frames the new film, but the movie belongs to newcomers Quentin Dolmaire and especially Lou Roy-Lecollinet, who play younger versions of the Desplechin’s vivid romantic foils as they try to find love and their voice.

Watch the trailer.
Friday, December 4 at 7:15 p.m. and Wednesday, December 9 at 7:15 p.m.

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Rob Baker Ashton and Elliot James Langridge (Freestyle Releasing)

Northern Soul

Set in 1974, this teenage DJ bromance follows two Manchester lads (Rob Baker Ashton, Elliot James Langridge) in their desperate quest for girls and rare American soul records, not necessarily in that order. The actors’ thick accents (including Steve Coogan as a high school teacher) make the proceedings occasionally hard to follow and, although the cinematography is spot on, period details like graffiti seem too slick. But the film’s soundtrack makes everything okay. Imagine a movie whose most triumphant moments include the arrival of an elusive soul 45, and you’ve got Northern Soul, which will make you ready to go out dancing or crate digging, not necessarily in that order.

Watch the trailer.
Friday, December 4 at 9:45 p.m. and Saturday, December 5 and 9:45 p.m.