“In the spring of 1958, in the region of Khuzestan, at the heart of the Iranian oil industry and of Persian civilization, an oil well explodes during a drilling. The eruption is endless; the fire is powerful, indestructible, and gigantic. It is a dragon. In any case, that is how it is presented in A Fire.” (Stéfani de Loppinot, Cinéma 07)Read More »
A girl in traditional female clothing, and her arm in plaster, comes out of school one day and doesn’t find her mother meeting her. She decides to travel home her self though she doesn’t know her address and remembers the road only visuallyRead More »
Hasan is seething with rage. A blacklisted director, it’s been years since he was allowed to shoot a film. The actress he has made a star and with whom he is in love now wants to make a film with another director. He and his wife have drifted apart and his daughter is also about to cut the cord. Moreover, his old mother who lives with them appears to be losing her mind. Worst of all, however, is that in Tehran and its environs, filmmakers are being murdered. But why is the serial killer ignoring him of all people? Hasan is crushed: isn’t he the best filmmaker in town? Why isn’t he being beheaded? His frustration is exacerbated when, as a result of a series of bizarre misunderstandings, he becomes the prime suspect. There’s a frenzy of running commentaries on social media and his popularity is plummeting by the minute. Hasan needs a diabolical plan to restore his reputation.Read More »
PLOT
An aging rail worker, living a mononously quiet life with his wife, is asked to retire. The second of the two austere-looking, deliberately paced films Shaheed Saless made in Iran proved to be one of the turning points of Iranian cinema in the 70s.Winner of numerous prizes at the Berlin Film Festival in 1974, including the Silver Bear for Best Director, STILL LIFE examines the lot in life of an old man who guards a railroad crossing and his wife, who brings in a meager income weaving carpets. After 30 years in the same job, the man is forced into retirement by the arrival of the new guard. Finally, he is forced to a bleak epiphany of society’s indifference to his fate.Read More »
The Gardener is a surreal film made using documentary-style techniques via the cameras of father and son (the Makhmalbafs) who go to Israel to learn about a religion (Baha’i faith) that they don’t know much due to its taboo status in the country of both the filmmaker and the faith’s birth – Iran.Read More »
Based on a short story by Houshang Golshiri, this film centers around mysterious and chilling events that take place in a village. A group of superstitious inhabitants have erected a scarecrow for protection but soon find themselves terrorized by it.Read More »
Quote:
A young woman’s wedding becomes a ritual of mourning when her sister and family die in an auto accident on the way to the wedding. The sisters’ mother refuses to accept her daughter’s death, and in the midst of wedding guests and mourners, including the drivers of the truck that caused the accident, she orders the wedding to take place. But how can the daughter marry in the midst of a wake and without the family’s traditional mirror, which the sister was bringing to the service? The film is transcendental in its resolution.Read More »
Khosrow and Morteza set out on a mission to kill someone. The assassination ought to be arranged as a suicide. At the last minute however, they are obliged to change their initial plans…Read More »
When Mr. Esalat is looking for a topic for his TV show, he notices an advertisement in the newspaper about a missing girl. The picture of the missing girl is very familiar to him and he tries to remember where he saw it before. His wife Asieh is a teacher and at home she writes his mother’s diary. When he searches for the address in that advertisement, he finds that it belongs to 30 years ago. Asieh is becoming interested in the missing girl too.Read More »