The Independent Recommends: Film - Mala Noche

GUS VAN SANT'S startling first film, Mala Noche, made in 1985, has been out of circulation for years. It's a raw but lyrical love story about a white twentysomething (Tim Streeter) who falls for a teenage Mexican and devotes his time to trying to sleep with him. The film is a model of tenderness, off-screen as well as on: faced with a supporting actor unwilling to implicate himself in gay love scenes, Van Sant was forced to edit together ambiguous shots to fabricate intimacy. Isn't that the essence of the film-making process?

ICA Cinematheque, London SW1 (0171-930 3647) 6.30pm, 8.30pm

The Louisiana melodrama Eve's Bayou (above) comes across like reheated Fried Green Tomatoes, but it boasts a succulent performance from Samuel L Jackson as a philandering doctor. When his female patients beg him to administer "something for the pain", they're not talking about aspirin.

On general release