Mzia Arabuli plays Lia, a retired schoolteacher on a journey from Batumi in Georgia all the way to Istanbul, Turkey. She embarks on this journey to find her trans niece Thekla (Tako Kurdovanidze), and helping her is Achi (Lucas Kankava). Good intentions don’t always help, so they find allies who have their own degrees of competence and willingness to help. There’s the one scene with the Georgian businessman but their best bet is on a trans lawyer, Evrim (Deniz Dumanli). Those characters, nonetheless, reveal communities in Istanbul like the Georgian diaspora and a community of trans people and allies. Crossing‘s focus is more on the trans community, who warn the Georgians of how difficult their journey can be.

Other critics compare this film with classic Mediterranean cinema, which makes sense because of its focus on strong female characters. The comparison also makes sense because past neorealism has its through lines with the scrappy feel of contemporary Mediterranean cinema. Crossing, even as it tackles the precarious lives of trans women, thankfully doesn’t overstate the dangers they daily face. There’s a scene where Deniz walks out of a date that never really happens, which can really go either way. That volatility continues as she walks Istanbul’s streets and a pirate cab – this is kinda badass – follows her for a bit. But things turn out ok for her, which speaks of the silver lining ethos of a lot of recent films.

An aspect of this collective ethos within Levan Akin’s Crossing of giving chances applies to the film’s main relationships. Deniz tells the cabbie Omer (Ziya Sudancikmaz) that she’s trans to scare him but it doesn’t. Their romp may lead to something, just like Lia and Achi’s contentious work relationship leads to a more familial love. They fight, forcing him to fend for himself in Istanbul, only for them to go for a carb dinner later. Georges Melies invented cinema for several reasons and one of them may be to show Lucas Kankava stuffing his face. All of this speaks to the film’s incisive use of irony and levity, both things intersecting, weaved within human experiences.

In depicting these experiences, Crossing shows that we can do more things to express our love towards those we know. A testament to that is Lia’s journey, hiring Achi, less qualified as an interpreter and more as a networking agent. Sometimes all of these efforts work and at others, people don’t feel like they do enough for each other. The film somehow implies that love has goals and sometimes, these people don’t reach said goals, which give them heartbreak. It asks questions that it doesn’t have ro need answers to and lets its viewers feel its characters’ nuanced emotions. Maybe the point is that losing the people we love makes us reach out and love other people much better.

Crossing comes in select Canadian theatres.