In a game of chess, the queen, capable of moving multiple spaces in any direction, is the most agile and powerful piece on the board. It is perhaps because the game lends itself to such a strong female protagonist that a movie about chess, The Luzhin Defense, was chosen to kick off this year’s Ninth Annual Boston International Festival of Women’s Cinema, which began yesterday.

The award-winning festival, held every year at Harvard Square’s very own Brattle Theatre to showcase the works of prominent and emerging female filmmakers, will be held from Thursday, April 19 through Sunday, April 22. This year, in addition to The Luzhin Defense, Christine Lahti’s My First Mister (starring Albert Brooks, Leelee Sobieski, John Goodman, and Carol Kane) will be highlighted, as well as films by renowned directors Sally Potter, Lynne Sopkewich and Samantha Lang. Screenings will be held all weekend long at the Brattle as well as the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline.

The Luzhin Defence is adapted from the book of the same name by the brilliant Vladimir Nabokov. A much earlier novel than more well-known works like Lolita and Pale Fire, Nabokov nonetheless provides the grounds for intriguing themes weaved within an intricate plot. Director Marleen Gorris has improved upon the original by tightening the plot and adding a complex and unpredictable ending that highlights the strength of her female protagonist and leaves the viewer puzzled over how to respond.

Gorris’s adaptation stars John Turturro as Alexander Ivanovich Luzhin, an ingenious but eccentric chess master who is at once addicted and allergic to the game he has mastered. Though his characters is so out of touch with the reality outside of the chessboard that he cannot even hold up a casual conversation, he nonetheless portrays a charming helplessness that neither the audience nor the film’s female protagonist can help responding to.

Luzhin is participating in an important chess tournament against Turati (Fabio Sartor), the world’s top chess master, when he stumbles upon Natalia (Emily Watson). Before he has even asked for her name or managed to engage her in a conversation of more than a few words, Luzhin asks for her hand in marriage. This provides the starting point for the strange yet endearing relationship between the two.

Though it is Luzhin whose name appears in the title, Gorris has transformed and developed the character of Natalia from Nabokov’s book in which she is nameless. In the film, Watson arguably plays the starring role, and is certainly no less outstanding than Turturro. The story is introduced, and much of it told, through Natalia’s perspective, and it seems that she is much wiser to the complexities of the real world than her counterpart, who is lost in the complexities of the world of chess.

Natalia’s strength is put to use in defending her mate from a variety of onslaughts. When Luzhin’s former coach, Valentinov (Stuart Wilson II), arrives with a malevolent desire to see his pupil defeated, he warns Turati that Luzhin plays poorly under pressure. Therefore the two conspire—Turati will play an aggressive game in order to create pressure on the board; Valentinov will disrupt Luzhin’s affair with Natalia in order to create pressure off the board.

Even before Valentinov’s arrival, Luzhin’s love is already threatened by Natalia’s parents, people of society who are hesitant to allow their daughter to marry such an eccentric. Yet Natalia nimbly maneuvers her way between each of these parties. Her success or failure (and Luzhin’s) is a curious question that the ending engages yet leaves unanswered.