It’s every film buff’s favorite time of year: The latest Panorama of the European Film kicks off today, bringing to Cairo a packed schedule of celebrated new European film releases through 26 November. Organized by Zawya Cinema — with some screenings also at Zamalek Cinema — this year’s festival includes six sections: feature films, emerging directors, documentaries, shorts, a retrospective of Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowskia’s work, and a section themed “Uncanny on Screen.” Being the overly studious film fans we are, we went ahead and binge-watched all 46 trailers so you don’t have to. Here’s our list of most anticipated watches.

But before we give you our rundown, we need to note some Panorama drama: After online booking was frozen for several days, Facebook posts began circulating claiming that the screenings of certain films featuring LGBTQ plotlines had been cancelled. The festival organizers later released a statement saying that Swedish drama Tove and Kurdish diaspora documentary This Rain Will Never Stop have been removed from the festival line-up, and that a limited number of films can now be booked online only. The move comes a week after the indefinitely postponed debut of Marvel film The Eternals, which features a same gender kiss.

Festival organizers released an updated schedule reflecting the changes earlier today.

All filmgoers are also now required to sign up for a festival membership card — which can be done without charge at the cinema itself — to prove their age, the festival announced.

Without further ado, in the feature film category: This is Panorama’s most anticipated section, featuring the Cannes and Venice nominees and laureates. This year, we’re looking forward to Cannes Grand Prix co-awardee Compartment No. 6 (watch trailer, 0:56), a dialogue-driven Finnish co-production by director Juho Kuosmanen, in which a woman escaping a tumultuous love affair is forced to share a train compartment with a (seemingly rather annoying) Russian miner on their trip to the remote arctic port of Murmansk.

We’re also keenly anticipating Les Olympiades, a contemporary take on a Parisian love triangle, coolly shot in black and white by veteran director Jacques Audiard and starring Noémie Merlant, who moved us to tears with her breakout performance in 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Also on our must-watch list: The coming of age of a contemporary dancer in Dutch drama I don’t wanna dance (watch trailer, 1:50); the Quixotic true tale of a Japanese soldier who refuses to accept the end of WWII in Onoda (watch trailer, 2:06); and Norwegian dark comedy by director Joachim Trier about a woman’s quarter-life crisis, The Worst Person in the World (watch trailer, 1:39).

Some notable absences from the category: A new film by Iranian master of social realism Asghar Farhadi (director of 2016’s The Salesman and 2011’s A Separation) titled A Hero (watch trailer, 2:00), which was awarded the Grand Prix along with Compartment No.6. French director Julia Ducournau’s second feature film, Titane (watch trailer, 1:53) which went home this year with Cannes’ highly coveted Palme d'Or, is also not showing.

In the emerging directors category: Argentine political thriller Azor (watch trailer, 2:16) by Swiss director Andreas Fontana tops our list. Set in 1980s, military junta-ruled Buenos Aires, a Swiss private banker enters the shadowy halls of power when his colleague mysteriously disappears and he is summoned to replace him. Also must sees for us: Spanish drama Libertad (watch trailer, 2:19) about a summer friendship between two adolescent girls of different social classes; mystical coming of age story Clara Sola (watch trailer, 2:13); and Zero [redacted] Given (watch teaser, 1:38) starring Adèle Exarchopoulos (whose faced we’ve missed since Blue is the Warmest Colour) as a seemingly carefree flight attendant flying around Europe in search of herself.

If you’re in the mood for something eerie, check out “Uncanny on Screen”: Our front runner so far is Lamb (watch trailer, 2:07), an Icelandic film about a couple living on a remote sheep farm who become too attached to a mysterious lamb they find on their property. Also showing are Here Before (watch trailer, 2:07), which carries on the the theme of unhealthy maternal love; Spanish film Sacred Spirit (watch trailer, 0:29), whose synopsis about the disappearance of a young girl has us intrigued despite the obscure trailer; and Earwig (watch trailer, 2:28), a mid-century tale of a girl with ice cubes for teeth, who no doubt gets up to some weirdness.

Feeling high-brow? Take a tour through the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski. Panorama is putting on a retrospective of the Polish auteur’s films, including his trio of Academy Award-nominated, Golden Lion-awarded psychological dramas, The Three Colours Trilogy — Blue (watch trailer, 1:46), White (watch trailer, 4:28) and Red (watch trailer, 1:03). Each film explores one of the French ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity—though in a very abstract manner, with the director famously having said that the concepts and colors were only used because his funding was French. The retrospective will also include another Kieślowski classic, The Double Life of Veronique (watch trailer, 3:57) about two young women who are doppelgangers. They never meet, but share an unexplained connection.

How about some bite-sized cinema? Five short films selected from the Leiden Shorts Film Festival will be screened in succession. Meanwhile, Panorama’s documentary section is showcasing nine films from Syria, Turkey, Spain, Georgia, and further afield, featuring everything from the backdoor workings of the tourism business, to a giant uprooted tree being ferried across the Black Sea on behalf of a wealthy dendrophile.

The full, updated program schedule is available here, and you can check out the festival’s website or Facebook page for more details.