An Iranian boy befriends an old Japanese woman at a graveyard in Tokyo.
Leyla and her six-year-old daughter Nila live in the holy city of Mashhad in Iran. Nila is the result of a temporary marriage, which allows a man to marry a woman even if he is already married. Children born from such a relationship are legally non-existent. As long as the father does not recognize the child, no birth certificate can be issued and Nila cannot attend school. The documentary depicts Leyla's tireless efforts to clarify Nila's legal status in order to offer her a perspective for her future. In a never-ending bureaucratic battle, Leyla fights not only against the legal system, but also against a judgmental society.
A director of a television series on the history of cinema, who has been grappling with the screenplay of his first feature film, receives an assignment to oversee the installation of a television relay station in a remote region of Zahedan province. He has already hired Turkmen tribespeople for his film and selected his filming location. Meanwhile his wife, who is working on her Ph.D. dissertation about the Mongol invasion of Iran, attempts to dissuade him from accepting the assignment. One night, while working on his history of the cinema series, the director fantasizes a diegetic world that consists of clever juxtapositions of his different worlds: the history of cinema, the history of the mongol invasion, his own film idea and his imminent assignment to the desert.
The Badger is the story of a 40-year-old woman called Soodeh Sharifzadegan who faces a strange incident, right before her second marriage.
According to the laws of Iran, Bahareh must have her traditional, chauvinistic husband accompany her to driving lessons so she and her instructor will not be alone.
THE BRIGHT DAY weaves a story that has its roots in the complexity of Iran’s draconian laws governing capital punishment. A kindergarten teacher hopes to aid the father of one of her young students, a man accused of manslaughter, by convincing each of seven reluctant witnesses to come forward. No one lacks a hidden agenda in this drama in which shades of truth collide with self-interest and the specter of payback. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
A young taxi driver who is a happy man encounters lots of different stories through his daily life. One day, he is driving a young American woman and he enters an unusual and protracted adventure which he should follow to the end. The American woman has lost the address she is going to refer and it is almost impossible to reach her relatives. The young driver believes that he should help the woman until she finds her relatives and this issue causes many problems between him and his fiancee. He also has other problems regarding the American woman and his unusual friend.
In 1980, a teenage boy escapes the unrest in Iran only to face more hostility in America, due to the hostage crisis. Determined to fit in, he joins the school's floundering wrestling team.
Wounded by the police, a thief looks up his old friend in order to leave the proceeds of his theft with him. Instead, he finds that his friend is a drug addict. He sticks around to try and help his friend kick the habit; instead, both men are caught in a shootout with the police and...
Dash Akol is greatly respected in Shiraz as an honorable man who has lost his family's money through helping his friends. He has an enemy, however, named Kaka Rostam, a mean and spiteful person. Dash Akol, who is in his forties, falls in love with Marjan, daughter of the late Haji Samad, for whose estate he is the executor. But he keeps his love secret. One day a suitor asks for Marjan's hand, and Dash Akol considers it against his code of honor to refuse. On the night of the wedding, Dash Akol hands over responsibility for the family to the bridegroom. As he is leaving the house, however, Kaka Rostam is waiting for him and a fight ensues. Kaka Rostam stabs him in the back, but Dash Akol succeeds in killing him. On his deathbed, Dash Akol sends his parrot to Marjan with the confession of love he has taught it.
A haughty acclaimed newly married fashion designer named Iraj is shown the door by his boss after the boss's son arrives at Iran to take over his father's company. Iraj reluctant to promulgate the loss of his job, starts using his savings, trying to conceal the truth from his naive wife. Having squandered all the money he had on trivial matters, he tells his wife about being axed & that's when the tables turn on him.
Prince Ehtejab, one of the last remaining heirs of the Qajar royal family, is suffering from tuberculosis, which he knows is fatal. He spends his last days alone in the magnificent rooms of his wintry palace, from where he recollects the glory days of his ancestors as well as days of degradation. Among the latter are the gruesome manner in which his cruel grandfather murdered his mother and brother, and the way that he himself caused the death of his wife.
Valeh, a member of a leftist organization, is arrested by the SAVAK and sentenced to death. In prison, he reconsiders his relationships with members of his political cell, and begins to doubt the validity of the ideas for which he is condemned. At the same time, his comrades pressure him to make a sacrifice for their cause, and his beloved wife experiences personal problems and economic hardships.
A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse. Progressing along a rough timeline from birth to death, each story is shot in a static camera angle as a single petitioner negotiates with an authority figure hovering just outside of frame, who is practiced in the language of doublespeak.
The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.
West Germany, Christmas Eve, 1971. 7-year-old Kimîa captures her family’s celebration through the lens of her Super 8 camera. But the mood changes when her mother, Hanna, discovers her husband’s plans.
When Mahi's son dies in a car accident, Behrouz who has returned to Iran to sell his properties, attends the funeral. Their old romance catches up while Behrouz has planned to marry Sara and go back to Canada with her.
Famed actress Susan Taslimi plays three roles here: Kian, who doubts her identity; Vida, the twin sister, a self-assured artist; and their mother, who gives up one child out of fear of poverty, then deprives the other of affection because she deeply regrets the child whom she has abandoned.
Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.
Bahram Beyzai's poetic imagining of the circumstances that led to the death of Yazdgerd III, the last of the Sassanid kings of Iran. His death in 651, during the Arab invasions that brought Islam to this Zoroastrian realm, was mysterious: his corpse was discovered in a mill, but the cause of his death—and the whereabouts of his remains—are unknown.