Audiences who saw writer-director Juho Kuosmanen’s first feature, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (PSIFF 2017), heralded the debut of a new talent who understood solitude and the desire for human connection. The same fundamental generosity of spirit elevates his second feature, the beguiling road movie Compartment No. 6, which shared the Cannes Grand Prix prize with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero (also showing in this year’s PSIFF lineup). Set in the late 1980s, the film follows Laura, a Finnish student traveling by train from Moscow to Murmansk to see ancient petroglyphs on the rocky coast. Stricken by the end of a relationship with an older woman, all Laura wants is time to herself to bask in her memories, but she has to share her compartment with Ljoha, an uncouth miner whose drinking, smoking and rude conversation prevents her from pondering, reading or even sleeping. Gradually, over the course of their long journey, an understanding starts to develop between them.