Pre-eminent British director Terence Davies (“Distant Voices, Still Lives”, “The House of Mirth”, “Sunset Song”) paints a subtle portrait of the poet Emily Dickinson, employing painterly tableaux to portray a life of supreme intelligence that is undermined by social codes and convention. Davies moves through Emily’s youth, so full of spirited repartee on art, life and women’s place in a patriarchal society, heightened by the use of Dickinson’s wonderful verse as voice-over. As her hopes are crushed, Emily withdraws into herself and darkness slowly descends. Those who know Cynthia Nixon only from “Sex and the City” may be totally surprised by her nuanced portrayal of Emily. “Utterly and gloriously Davies,” Sight & Sound

UK/Belgium, 2016 (125 minutes)

Co-presented by Word For Word. Actors from Word For Word will introduce the film by reading selected Dickinson poems.

In this poignant and unsettling contemporary family drama, loosely based on Ibsen’s 19th century play “The Wild Duck,” a wayward son returns from America to attend the wedding of his father to his much younger former housekeeper. The picturesque rural background belies the fact that these are the last days of a dying Australian logging town. Getting reacquainted with a childhood friend, the son accidentally uncovers a secret that could be destructive to family relationships. This is the first full-length feature from famed Aussie theater director Simon Stone, who became intrigued with the cinematic possibilities of Ibsen’s play while directing it onstage. He has a golden touch with actors; Geoffrey Rush as the groom and Sam Neill and Miranda Otto (“Homeland”) as an uneasy married couple are at the top of their game. From the producer of “The Piano” and “Lantana.” Variety calls “The Daughter” “low-key yet achingly intense.”

Australia, 2015 (96 minutes)