Black Pond is a bleak off-kilter faux-documentary style drama about life, death and media treatment of suspected criminals. The set up is like one of those TV documentaries where they show you the aftermath of a crime. The accused are Tom (Chris Langham) and Sophie (Amanda Hadingue); the remnants of their family being held together by their three-legged dog, Boy.

The doc follows the events following Tom’s meeting with the oddly disconnected but endearing Blake (Colin Hurley) while walking near the titular Black Pond. The interviews with family members are intercut with events leading up to the murder and interludes with family friend Tim (Will Sharpe) talking to the unscrupulous supposed-psychoanalyst Eric Sacks (Simon Amstell).

"Sometimes the things that are absurd make sense, and the things that make sense are absurd.” So speaks Joe Davis, the man who once genetically modified a pink apple to tempt the Devil.

We first come across him at a bar in Massachuetts, washing up the dishes for free chicken and beer. And although he looks like a lunatic, from his bright yellow mac to his sprawling white hair, you suspect there’s something more to him. An artist who uses science to explore humanity and himself, he realises the two aren’t separate disciplines, but tools that can ask and answer each other’s questions.

From his unconventional application to join MIT to his bad luck with housing and repeated evictions, Davis rushes through life from one crazed idea to the next. He recreates Carl Sagan’s Arecibo message of 1679 binary digits sent into space in the form of water bottles in an MIT library, where intelligent people might be best placed to understand it. No one does.

Then he constructs radio and audio microscopes to listen to the sound of paramecia and stentors – an excellent project (reminiscent of Semiconductor’s superb Black Rain), which director Peter Sasowsky captures with colourful close-ups and deep, booming sound waves.

These seem like the creations of a madman, but as his friends and colleagues tell the camera, Davis is a genetics pioneer and his plans are all based in hard science or (wonderfully warped) logic. Why broadcast a recording of vaginal contractions to extra-terrestrials in the universe? Why create a light stethoscope using a torch, a naked woman smeared in honey, and a thin layer of gold dust? Why design and build a laser that can neutralise natural weather and potentially save the world from storms? A quiet shot of Davis standing at the wreckage of his brother’s home, torn apart by a Hurricane Rita is as revealing as it is moving.

Montevideo is the romanticised whimsical tale of the first Yugoslav national football team and their journey from the streets of Belgrade to the first World Cup in Uraguay. The film has done incredibly well in its homeland of Serbia, and is their foreign language entry for the Academy Awards - it's also rather brilliant.

The tale is told through the eyes of Stanoje, a kid who hero worships his older friend 'Tirke' Tirnanić - he has skills and fantastic hair. Enter 'Mosha' "He was great, even when football was small" Marjanović, the talented rich kid everyone fawns over. He comes with a cart load of trouble, living the footballer lifestyle long before Best or Ronaldo.

The Raindance Film Festival 2011 opened this evening with the premiere of Another Earth. It tells the tale of a young science student Rhoda (talented newcomer Brit Marling) whose life is changed after a tragic car accident. As she tries to make amends and builds a relationship with isolated composer John (William Mapother), a second planet Earth appears in the solar system.

Now, I'm sadly not allowed to publish my full review of Another Earth yet due to a silly embargo, but I can post a brief reaction to Mike Cahill's subtle, low-key sci-fi, which manages to raise all the philosophical questions of a parallel world without needing to leave Rhoda's front yard. So here it is:

IT'S AWESOME. 

Here's hoping the rest of the Raindance Film Festival lives up to the high standard of its opening film (our Raindance Film Festival preview is here). Meanwhile, Another Earth is out in UK cinemas in December - you can watch the Another Earth trailer here.

The Raindance Film Festival runs from Wednesday 28th September to Sunday 9th October. For suggestions on what indie films to see over the next couple of weeks, here are 10 films you should see at the Raindance Film Festival 2011.