The picturesque Canadian seaside is the perfect backdrop for this poignant, tender drama in which religious repression is no match for the purity and passion of young love. After her father passes away, teenage Jaime (Anwen O’Driscoll) is sent to live with her aunt and uncle, devout Jehovah’s Witnesses in Quebec.

While welcomed lovingly, she is required to abide by their religious community’s restrictions, regardless of her being a nonbeliever. With streaks of angst and rebellion and an easy confidence in her sexuality, she balances cutting class and smoking weed with her classmate Nate (Hasani Freeman) with attending church meetings and service missions with Marike (June Laporte), a teen Witness who fully embraces “The Truth”—a faith in which those who choose to leave are treated as if they have died. But what starts as a tender friendship between the girls evolves into an intimate—and forbidden—affair that is destined to upturn their lives.

— Joanne Parsont