A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (© 2014 - Kino Lorber)

Vampire movies seem to have long since run out of possibilities, but occassionally fresh blood creeps out of the shadows. Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut feature A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (pictured) bills itself as “the first Iranian vampire-Western,” and there aren’t too many other contenders to the distinction. The atmospheric black-and-white film is set in Iran with dialogue in Persian, but was actually filmed in a small California town. Opens September 19 at Cinema Qualite (3-37-12 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku; http://qualite.musashino-k.jp).

Although many associate Swedish films with knights playing games of chess with Death himself, the country has a prolific and diverse cinema, as evidenced by the Swedish Film Festival running September 19-25 at Eurospace (1-5 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku; www.eurospace.co.jp). The lineup includes two social dramas by acclaimed director Ruben Östlund, a documentary on the making of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, and a Pippi Longstocking film.

The documentary Bolshoi Babylon delves into the 2013 season of the famed Russian ballet troupe, which had as much drama offstage as on, including a dancer plotting an acid attack against the director. Screening (partially in Russian) from September 19 at Bunkamura’s Le Cinema (2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; www.bunkamura.co.jp).