Iran

  • Seifollah Dad – Almoutabaki AKA The Survivor (1995)

    1991-2000DramaIranPoliticsSeifollah Dad

    An emotional and symbolic drama depicting the transformation of Palestine into Israel by focusing on an Arab and Jewish couple who occupy the same house before and after the establishment of the state of Israel. Palestinian physician Saeed and his wife Latifeh live in 1948 Haifa. As Jewish refugees arrive from Europe and the Palestinian residents protest, tensions mount in the city. During the ensuing war, Saeed and Latifeh are killed but their infant son Farhan survives. Soon thereafter, a Jewish couple takes up residence in Saeed’s house and adopts Farhan, whose name has been changed to Moshe. Meanwhile, Saeed’s mother Safiyeh, who had come to Haifa to convince her son to flee the mounting tensions, finds out what happened and poses as the former nanny of Farhan/Moshe while her husband Rasheed plans their revenge.Read More »

  • Ebrahim Golestan – Asrar ganj dareheye jenni AKA The ghost valley’s treasure mysteries (1974)

    1971-1980ArthouseComedyEbrahim GolestanIran

    Quote:
    The Ghost Valley’s Treasure Mysteries (in Persian: اسرار گنج دره جنی, transliterated as Asrar-e Ganj-e Darre-ye Jenni), also known as “The Secrets of the Treasure of the Jinn Valley”, is a 1974 satirical comedy Iranian film, directed by Ebrahim Golestan. It was released by Golestan Films, and was Golestan’s last feature film in Iran. Using symbolic language, the director was accused of having the Shah’s support.

    Very bad quality, but apparently the only way to see this movie by Ebrahim Golestan.Read More »

  • Ayat Najafi – No Land’s Song (2014)

    2011-2020Ayat NajafiDocumentaryIran

    Quote:
    In Iran, since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women are no longer allowed to sing in public as soloists – at least in front of men. Defying censorship and taboos, the young composer Sara Najafi is determined to organize an official concert for solo female singers.

    In order to support their fight, Sara and her friends invite three French female singers, Elise Caron, Jeanne Cherhal and Emel Mathlouthi, to join them in Tehran and collaborate on their musical project, re-opening a musical bridge between Europe and Iran.Read More »

  • Naser Taghvai – Daii jan Napelon AKA My Uncle Napoleon (1976)

    1971-1980ComedyIranNaser TaghvaiTV

    An uproarious adoption of a popular novel by Iraj Pezeshkzad set in and around the family compound in early 1940s Tehran, marvelously rich in personality and incident. The title character, so-called because of his constant invocation of the general, rules over a wonderfully complex extended family. A hilarious series which makes fun of just about everything.Read More »

  • Mohammad Hossein Latifi – Khabgah-e dokhtaran AKA Girl’s Dormitory (2004)

    2001-2010DramaHorrorIranMohammad Hossein Latifi

    A group of college students move into a dilapidated dormitory that is reputed by local people to be haunted.

    From Horror.com:
    The history of horror films being made in Iran goes back to the 1950’s when the late directory Samuel Khachikian cranked out titles like “A Party in Hell” (1956), “The Midnight Terror” (1961) and “Delirium” (1965). Over the years since, the horror genre in Iran has had its up and downs. One thing has remained constant, though, many Iranian movie fans welcome the chance to see domestically produced fright films. Read More »

  • Mani Haghighi – Ejdeha Vared Mishavad! AKA A Dragon Arrives! (2016)

    2011-2020AdventureIranMani HaghighiMystery

    Quote:
    An orange Chevrolet Impala drives across a cemetery towards an abandoned shipwreck in the middle of a desert landscape. It is the 22nd of January, 1965. The day before, the Iranian prime minister was shot dead in front of the parliament building.Read More »

  • Marva Nabili – Khake Sar Beh Morh AKA The Sealed Soil (1977)

    1971-1980DramaIranMarva NabiliThe Female Gaze

    Quote:
    Made surreptitiously in 1977 just as the Ayatollah Khomeini regime was coming to power, a rough cut of ‘The Sealed Soil” was smuggled out of Iran by the director in a false-bottomed suitcase, and taken to the U.S., where che completed her final cut. The film has never been seen in IranRead More »

  • Mehdi Fard Ghaderi – Tanavob AKA Alternation (2005)

    2001-2010ExperimentalIranMehdi Fard GhaderiShort Film

    Quote:
    A stealing happens on a train and it is shown from the perspective of each passenger.Read More »

  • Abbas Kiarostami – Zendegi Va Digar Hich aka And Life Goes On (1991)

    1991-2000Abbas KiarostamiArthouseDramaIran

    SYNOPSIS
    On a chaotic and congested highway toll interchange, an off-camera toll clerk listens impassively to a humanitarian public service radio broadcast from a Red Crescent spokesperson urging listeners to consider adoption of the many children who have been left orphaned as a result of the recent devastating earthquake in northern Iran. An unnamed, middle-aged film director (Farhad Kheradmand) stops at the tollbooth and inquires about the condition of the main road to Rudbar, having been turned back a day earlier at the intermediate town of Manjil due to the impassability of the route. Accompanied by his son Puya (Puya Pievar), the director is hoping to reach the village of Koker in search of the Ahmadpour brothers: two boys who had appeared in his film, Where is the Friend’s House? (a self-reference to Abbas Kiarostami’s earlier film).Read More »

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