Payman Maadi brings a fierce intelligence to his portrayal of a refugee seeking a secure new home for his family in Sweden
Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher from 2015 and Sean Durkin’s recent The Iron Claw show the sport of wrestling as deeply dysfunctional; wrestling fans might wonder if their favourite pastime is ever going to be depicted in the movies as vital and dramatic, like football, or even tragically noble and masculine, like boxing. Well … not in this film.
Motståndaran, or Opponent, is a tense, complex drama from Iranian-born and Denmark-based director Milad Alami, drawing on some of his own experiences as a refugee in northern Sweden. Payman Maadi (from Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation) plays Imam, a grizzled Iranian wrestling champ seeking asylum in Sweden with his pregnant wife Maryam (Marall Nasiri) and their two young daughters. He and his family left behind a good, prosperous life in Tehran,...
Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher from 2015 and Sean Durkin’s recent The Iron Claw show the sport of wrestling as deeply dysfunctional; wrestling fans might wonder if their favourite pastime is ever going to be depicted in the movies as vital and dramatic, like football, or even tragically noble and masculine, like boxing. Well … not in this film.
Motståndaran, or Opponent, is a tense, complex drama from Iranian-born and Denmark-based director Milad Alami, drawing on some of his own experiences as a refugee in northern Sweden. Payman Maadi (from Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation) plays Imam, a grizzled Iranian wrestling champ seeking asylum in Sweden with his pregnant wife Maryam (Marall Nasiri) and their two young daughters. He and his family left behind a good, prosperous life in Tehran,...
- 4/9/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
There’s a lone wolf out there in the mountains, somewhere near the Finnish border. In an early scene we see him walking through the snow, faint brown stains in the fur around his mouth evidence of a recent kill. From the hotel car park where the asylum seekers gather, we can hear him howl. Somebody will hunt him down and kill him soon, Iman (Payman Maadi) is told.
In the interviews the state interrogators ask “Why don’t you want to go back to your own country?” and, of course, most asylum seekers want that very much. Iman and his wife, Maryam (Marall Nasiri), are exhausted by being moved around, asked now to shift their belongings into yet another room to make way for a fresh wave of displaced people. They have two daughters and a new baby on the way. Iman is trying to make a bit of money by delivering.
In the interviews the state interrogators ask “Why don’t you want to go back to your own country?” and, of course, most asylum seekers want that very much. Iman and his wife, Maryam (Marall Nasiri), are exhausted by being moved around, asked now to shift their belongings into yet another room to make way for a fresh wave of displaced people. They have two daughters and a new baby on the way. Iman is trying to make a bit of money by delivering.
- 3/9/2024
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Toronto drama took seven prizes including best director, actor, supporting actor.
Axel Petersen’s Malta-set drama Shame On Dry Land won a record seven prizes at the Guldbagge awards, Sweden’s national film ceremony, held on Monday, January 15 in Stockholm.
The film, about a con man who becomes entangled in a Swedish online gambling community while in Malta, took best director for Petersen, best actor for Joel Spira, and best supporting actor for Christopher Wagelin.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
It also received prizes for best editing, cinematography, sound design and original score. Its seven awards...
Axel Petersen’s Malta-set drama Shame On Dry Land won a record seven prizes at the Guldbagge awards, Sweden’s national film ceremony, held on Monday, January 15 in Stockholm.
The film, about a con man who becomes entangled in a Swedish online gambling community while in Malta, took best director for Petersen, best actor for Joel Spira, and best supporting actor for Christopher Wagelin.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
It also received prizes for best editing, cinematography, sound design and original score. Its seven awards...
- 1/16/2024
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The Toronto drama took seven prizes including best director, actor, supporting actor.
Axel Petersen’s Malta-set drama Shame On Dry Land won a record seven prizes at the Guldbagge awards, Sweden’s national film ceremony, held on Monday, January 15 in Stockholm.
The film, about a con man who becomes entangled in a Swedish online gambling community while in Malta, took best director for Petersen, best actor for Joel Spira, and best supporting actor for Christopher Wagelin.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
It also received prizes for best editing, cinematography, sound design and original score. Its seven awards...
Axel Petersen’s Malta-set drama Shame On Dry Land won a record seven prizes at the Guldbagge awards, Sweden’s national film ceremony, held on Monday, January 15 in Stockholm.
The film, about a con man who becomes entangled in a Swedish online gambling community while in Malta, took best director for Petersen, best actor for Joel Spira, and best supporting actor for Christopher Wagelin.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
It also received prizes for best editing, cinematography, sound design and original score. Its seven awards...
- 1/16/2024
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Mika Gustafson’s social drama Paris Is Burning has won the top prize for best film at the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden’s top film honors.
The feature, which premiered in Venice’s Horizons section this year, follows three sisters who left to their own devices by their absent mother, live a life of anarchic freedom. But when social services come calling, the oldest has to find someone to impersonate their mum to avoid being shipped off to foster care. It was picked as the best Swedish film of the past year at the Guldbagge Awards ceremony in Stockholm on Monday night. Paris is Burning also scooped the Guldbagge for best set design for Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth.
But the night’s big winner was Axel Petersén’s Shame on Dry Land. The neo-noir set in the world of online gamblers picked up 7 Guldbagge awards, including for best director and best actor for lead Joel Spira,...
The feature, which premiered in Venice’s Horizons section this year, follows three sisters who left to their own devices by their absent mother, live a life of anarchic freedom. But when social services come calling, the oldest has to find someone to impersonate their mum to avoid being shipped off to foster care. It was picked as the best Swedish film of the past year at the Guldbagge Awards ceremony in Stockholm on Monday night. Paris is Burning also scooped the Guldbagge for best set design for Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth.
But the night’s big winner was Axel Petersén’s Shame on Dry Land. The neo-noir set in the world of online gamblers picked up 7 Guldbagge awards, including for best director and best actor for lead Joel Spira,...
- 1/16/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
‘Opponent’ debuted in Panorama at Berlinale.
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Milad Alami’s Opponent, which plays in the main Crystal Globe competition this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).
The second feature from Iranian director Alami, Opponent follows a man who breaks a promise to his wife and joins a local wrestling club, after the family have fled Iran for northern Sweden.
The film debuted in Panorama at the 2023 Berlinale, going on to win a special jury prize in competition at Seattle International Film Festival in May.
A Separation star Payman Maadi plays the lead role,...
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Milad Alami’s Opponent, which plays in the main Crystal Globe competition this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).
The second feature from Iranian director Alami, Opponent follows a man who breaks a promise to his wife and joins a local wrestling club, after the family have fled Iran for northern Sweden.
The film debuted in Panorama at the 2023 Berlinale, going on to win a special jury prize in competition at Seattle International Film Festival in May.
A Separation star Payman Maadi plays the lead role,...
- 7/3/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
It’s striking how often the word “removal” comes up in various governments’ official policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers — a pointedly chosen term that conjures images of inanimate refuse or clutter awaiting collection, rather than human lives in desperate limbo. Fail to make your case to officials and you’ll be “removed,” a near-literally dehumanizing threat that hangs over Milad Alami’s tense, bristling social thriller “Opponent” like a pounding migraine. Following an Iranian wrestler and father whose urgent reasons for fleeing his homeland aren’t entirely what he claims them to be, this is a tightly wound affair that unravels an obscured past and an uncertain future neatly in tandem. Alami maintains suspense at both ends of his narrative without making a blank cypher of his protagonist, played with seething specificity by an electrifying Payman Maadi.
That galvanizing lead performance — by an actor who hasn’t attained quite...
That galvanizing lead performance — by an actor who hasn’t attained quite...
- 3/11/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Milad Alami’s Opponent begins with an Audre Lorde quote: “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” The Black lesbian poet wrote eloquently about the violence of silence, arguing that breaking through silence and speaking out is a radical act, as essential to self-knowledge as it is to communication. The protagonist of this tightly knotted drama — played in a knockout performance by Payman Maadi, churning with rage, desire and pained vulnerability — is imprisoned by his silence, literally wrestling with himself, to use the metaphor that gives the film its bristling vitality.
Maadi plays Iman, who fled Tehran with his family and is seeking asylum in the far north of Sweden. The reasons for that abrupt flight are revealed only later, but there are clues in a prologue that starts effectively with a blank screen and the sounds of body slams and grunts of wrestlers training hard in a gym.
Maadi plays Iman, who fled Tehran with his family and is seeking asylum in the far north of Sweden. The reasons for that abrupt flight are revealed only later, but there are clues in a prologue that starts effectively with a blank screen and the sounds of body slams and grunts of wrestlers training hard in a gym.
- 2/25/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sepideh Farsi’s “La Sirène” (“The Siren”) is opening the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand.
The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.
Panorama Selections
“After”
by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska
France
World premiere | Debut film
“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”
by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe
Nigeria
World premiere | Debut film
“And, Towards Happy Alleys”
by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani
India
World premiere | Debut film | Documentary
“La Bête dans la...
The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.
Panorama Selections
“After”
by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska
France
World premiere | Debut film
“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”
by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe
Nigeria
World premiere | Debut film
“And, Towards Happy Alleys”
by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani
India
World premiere | Debut film | Documentary
“La Bête dans la...
- 1/18/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
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