Set against the vibrant landscape of South Florida, and featuring an ensemble of award-winning actors and breakouts alike, “Waves” traces the epic emotional journey of a suburban African-American family — led by a well-intentioned but domineering father (magnificently played by St. Louis’ own Sterling K. Brown) — as they navigate love, forgiveness, and coming together in the aftermath of a loss. From acclaimed director Trey Edward Shults (“Krisha,” which screened at the 2014 SLIFF, and “It Comes At Night”), “Waves” is a heartrending story about the universal capacity for compassion and growth even in the darkest of times. Calling the film an “ambitious, essential portrait of an African American family in turmoil,” Variety writes: “‘Waves’ bends and surprises, radiates and engulfs, in a dizzying and ecstatic attempt to capture the love and pain and pressure visited upon a contemporary American family — an African American family, to be precise. For Shults, who is white, doing justice to that experience means projecting beyond himself to capture all that is universal and unique about his four central characters, each of whom feels fully dimensional by the end of this intimate epic.”