In July, Iran arrested three filmmakers for speaking out against police violence and the persecution of women in the country, including prominent directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof. Now, a fourth veteran Iranian filmmaker is facing repercussions for speaking out, as “Subtraction” director Mani Haghighi told IndieWire that his passport was confiscated at the Tehran International Airport on Thursday while he was en route to the BFI London Film Festival. He was prevented from boarding his flight and returned home.
“I thought this was going to happen,” he said in a voice memo on Thursday shortly after he was informed of the decision. “It’s just their attempt to intimidate us. The more noise we make, the less successful that plan will be.”
A spokesperson for the BFI London Film Festival told IndieWire that the festival was aware of the situation. “We understand that no reason has been given to Mani Haghighi for the confiscation,...
“I thought this was going to happen,” he said in a voice memo on Thursday shortly after he was informed of the decision. “It’s just their attempt to intimidate us. The more noise we make, the less successful that plan will be.”
A spokesperson for the BFI London Film Festival told IndieWire that the festival was aware of the situation. “We understand that no reason has been given to Mani Haghighi for the confiscation,...
- 10/14/2022
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Exclusive: In an unusual move, but one that speaks to fluidity in the distribution landscape and increasing demand for foreign-language series, LA-based film firm The Exchange is launching world sales (excluding Iran) at the upcoming Cannes virtual market on hit Iranian TV series The Frog.
The series follows Ramin, a man dissatisfied with a life of low-paying petty crime in Tehran, who determines with friends to rob an enormously wealthy former classmate. However, the theft goes fatally awry and Ramin finds himself entangled in a dangerous web of deceit involving the police, local gangsters, and greedy family members.
It’s rare for TV series to be launched at film markets. But the very concept of a market has been fraying in recent years, especially in the Covid era. Sales increasingly take place across the year and traditional film companies are increasingly working in TV.
The Exchange has also boarded remake...
The series follows Ramin, a man dissatisfied with a life of low-paying petty crime in Tehran, who determines with friends to rob an enormously wealthy former classmate. However, the theft goes fatally awry and Ramin finds himself entangled in a dangerous web of deceit involving the police, local gangsters, and greedy family members.
It’s rare for TV series to be launched at film markets. But the very concept of a market has been fraying in recent years, especially in the Covid era. Sales increasingly take place across the year and traditional film companies are increasingly working in TV.
The Exchange has also boarded remake...
- 6/11/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Known for her impressive short films The Silence and Gaze, Iranian filmmaker Farnoosh Samadi makes her feature debut with family drama 180 Degree Rule (Khate Farzi). It explores how one seemingly simple decision made by a parent can be drastically life-changing.
Based on a friend of Samadi’s real-life experience, this story set in Tehran follows teacher Sara (Sahar Dolatshahi) who is married to Hamed (Pejman Jamshidi). Their relationship feels strained when we first encounter them, like a union of convenience to care for their young daughter Raha. Sara wants to go to a family wedding in the North, but Hamed is not so keen. He is suddenly called away on a work trip, and forbids his wife from going. Sara makes the decision to go with her daughter anyway, but in secret. The consequences of her actions have a dire effect, with her resorting to secrets and lies upon Hamed’s return.
Based on a friend of Samadi’s real-life experience, this story set in Tehran follows teacher Sara (Sahar Dolatshahi) who is married to Hamed (Pejman Jamshidi). Their relationship feels strained when we first encounter them, like a union of convenience to care for their young daughter Raha. Sara wants to go to a family wedding in the North, but Hamed is not so keen. He is suddenly called away on a work trip, and forbids his wife from going. Sara makes the decision to go with her daughter anyway, but in secret. The consequences of her actions have a dire effect, with her resorting to secrets and lies upon Hamed’s return.
- 10/19/2020
- by Lisa Giles-Keddie
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
There’s so much to learn about Iranian schoolteacher Sara (Sahar Dolatshahi) in the opening act of Farnoosh Samadi’s feature directorial debut, “180 Degree Rule.” She’s popular, well-regarded by both her fellow teachers and her teenage students, the kind of person who gets things done, a loving mother to her young daughter Raha, and a major part of her boisterous and big family. Her relationship with her uptight husband Hamed (Pejman Jamshidi) is something different, however, and he seems to think her can-do attitude is really just nagging. No wonder her deep empathy never seems to apply to him.
In her previous series of short films, Samadi turned her attention to the kind of thorny, character-rich dramas often associated with contemporary Iranian cinema (shades of Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” are not hard to find in “180 Degree Rule”). For her feature directorial debut, Samadi again takes on...
In her previous series of short films, Samadi turned her attention to the kind of thorny, character-rich dramas often associated with contemporary Iranian cinema (shades of Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” are not hard to find in “180 Degree Rule”). For her feature directorial debut, Samadi again takes on...
- 9/16/2020
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
The husband of a woman due to play a match abroad refuses her permission to travel in a fictionalised version of a true story
Permission is a handmaid’s tale taken straight from the headlines. In 2015, Niloufar Ardalan was captain of the Iranian women’s indoor football team, which had just reached the Asian Championships final in Malaysia. Incredibly, she was prevented from playing, because her TV presenter husband would not give her the permission to travel abroad that married women in Iran legally need.
A fictionalised version of this extraordinary situation, Permission is the debut feature from Iranian dramatist and film-maker Soheil Beiraghi. Baran Kosari plays Afrooz, the player who is turned back at the airport and who then realises that her sporting celebrity and Instagram following count for nothing. Her cowed teammates won’t support her; her husband Yasser (Amir Jadidi) is a preening TV star who presides...
Permission is a handmaid’s tale taken straight from the headlines. In 2015, Niloufar Ardalan was captain of the Iranian women’s indoor football team, which had just reached the Asian Championships final in Malaysia. Incredibly, she was prevented from playing, because her TV presenter husband would not give her the permission to travel abroad that married women in Iran legally need.
A fictionalised version of this extraordinary situation, Permission is the debut feature from Iranian dramatist and film-maker Soheil Beiraghi. Baran Kosari plays Afrooz, the player who is turned back at the airport and who then realises that her sporting celebrity and Instagram following count for nothing. Her cowed teammates won’t support her; her husband Yasser (Amir Jadidi) is a preening TV star who presides...
- 11/20/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
A portrayal of a marriage in crisis is nothing uncommon in Iranian cinema. Not once, not twice we were quiet observers of the bonds and relations falling apart. Asghar Farhadi even brought this kind of existential drama to perfection. Though “Reza”, a debut feature of a poet, screenplay writer, an author and a movie critic Alireza Motamedi, is unlike any of those movies. The director, who also scripted the film and cast himself as the main character, takes a completely different approach, what results in a warm and light-hearted story, a kind of offbeat romcom for intellectuals.
“Reza” is screening at San Diego Asian Film Festival:
After nine years of marriage, Reza (Alireza Motamedi) and Fati (Sahar Dolatshahi), both successful architects, are going to part their ways. The decision is hers and Reza is far from understanding the reasons behind his wife’s sudden change of heart. Actually, she is...
“Reza” is screening at San Diego Asian Film Festival:
After nine years of marriage, Reza (Alireza Motamedi) and Fati (Sahar Dolatshahi), both successful architects, are going to part their ways. The decision is hers and Reza is far from understanding the reasons behind his wife’s sudden change of heart. Actually, she is...
- 4/17/2019
- by Joanna Kończak
- AsianMoviePulse
Family and duty come into conflict in Behnam Behzadi’s tale of a woman torn
Heavy, low-hanging clouds of pollution loom over Behnam Behzadi’s low-key Tehran-set drama. The dynamic Sahar Dolatshahi is Niloofar, an independent business owner and city singleton, lumped with responsibility for her ailing mother (Shirin Yazdanbakhsh). Dolatshahi is compelling as a woman torn between familial duty and self-determination, coming alive in one particular clothes-shop confrontation. One caveat: the constant shrill ring of mobile phones, a distracting narrative device that pushes the plot along while pulling the viewer out.
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Heavy, low-hanging clouds of pollution loom over Behnam Behzadi’s low-key Tehran-set drama. The dynamic Sahar Dolatshahi is Niloofar, an independent business owner and city singleton, lumped with responsibility for her ailing mother (Shirin Yazdanbakhsh). Dolatshahi is compelling as a woman torn between familial duty and self-determination, coming alive in one particular clothes-shop confrontation. One caveat: the constant shrill ring of mobile phones, a distracting narrative device that pushes the plot along while pulling the viewer out.
Continue reading...
- 5/21/2017
- by Simran Hans
- The Guardian - Film News
Behnam Behzadi’s absorbing film offers a subdued tale of family dynamics but ultimately shies away from the issues
Behnam Behzadi’s film is a sombre, subdued family drama set in Tehran about the insidious patriarchal forces that conspire, almost without entirely knowing it and certainly without admitting it, against independent-minded women. It is a misogynist oppression as all-pervasive as the smog that settles everywhere on the city. For another director, this might have been a more straightforwardly emotional story of a dutiful daughter, the kind of drama that could have interested Ozu or Douglas Sirk – and in many ways that is what it is here. But Inversion is more downbeat, more oblique in ways that might not have attracted those film-makers. It is an involving story, but I found it sometimes a little dessicated, and the ending rather shies away from the intractable dilemmas that had been so painful.
Behnam Behzadi’s film is a sombre, subdued family drama set in Tehran about the insidious patriarchal forces that conspire, almost without entirely knowing it and certainly without admitting it, against independent-minded women. It is a misogynist oppression as all-pervasive as the smog that settles everywhere on the city. For another director, this might have been a more straightforwardly emotional story of a dutiful daughter, the kind of drama that could have interested Ozu or Douglas Sirk – and in many ways that is what it is here. But Inversion is more downbeat, more oblique in ways that might not have attracted those film-makers. It is an involving story, but I found it sometimes a little dessicated, and the ending rather shies away from the intractable dilemmas that had been so painful.
- 5/18/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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