Iran

Synopsis
Three actresses at different stages of their career. One from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one popular star of today known throughout the country and a young girl longing to attend a drama conservatory.

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The story of an addicted woman Mahsa who thinks that her girl is dead but when finds out that she is alive and lives by her father (Mahsa’s ex-husband) decides to take her back. This put her to face her ex-husband and his new wife.Read More »

Quote:
In this dreamlike yet earthbound film, Rahmat the boatman navigates the increasingly brackish waters of a coastal land, collecting the heartaches and tears of its inhabitants. But he remains powerless against their misguided attempts to appease the gods and make the land green again, whether by offering a bride to the sea or forcibly “treating” the eyes of a painter who sees in different colors. Drawing first-hand on the challenges faced by Iranian artists today, writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof’s deeply atmospheric and poetical film is a gorgeous allegory of intolerance, brutality, and mystified routine that resonates far beyond any one state’s borders.Read More »

The overlapping tales of three Iranian women who live in a poor Tehran neighborhood unfold by revisiting certain plot points from different perspectives. Each revisit reveals new insights into the characters’ motivations and struggles. The story centers around the people who frequent Cafe Setareh and who play important roles in the lives of each of the main three female characters.Read More »

A former university professor now living as a goldfish farmer in a Northern Iranian village, Reza quietly tends to his own affairs alongside his wife Hadis, a principal at a local girls’ school, and their young son. After his river-sourced water supply is cut off, Reza’s goldfish begin dying. His attempt to reopen his sluice is met with a violent attack by thuggish local Abbas, a strongman for a shadowy organization known as simply “the company.” Reza refuses to compensate Abbas for a fake injury, or bribe his way out of mounting legal problems, but he quickly discovers the steep price to be paid for holding on to principles in a system where money trumps morality.

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A voice from IMDB
Several of the negative comments about this film were so blind. This movie is about American culture and makes you think about big questions that nag us — why do Americans respond to a crisis by hating others? I was alive and conscious during the events of 1979, I have known Iranians as college acquaintances and friends, and the use of footage in the movie is very effective at evoking memories of that time. Thinking about the racism against Iranians during that time and then thinking about how too many Americans reacted to the events of September 11, the march to a stupid war in Iraq, etc., etc., makes it clear once again that we Americans need to do some deep soul searching. Watch this movie and think about it — don’t try to act like some film critic or reviewer. Interestingly, on the surface this movie is about Iranians, but in fact I found that it was about American culture.Read More »

Synopsis:
On a cold winter’s night in modern Tehran, a couple of young lovers run into a serious problem, and they have just a few hours to come up with a solution. They go from hospital to hospital in search for help, but none of the hospitals will admit the young woman and provide her with the medical attention she desperately requires. While they try hard to find a way to solve the problem, they have to hide what is happening from their parents. Moreover, their relationship is facing a crisis and will suffer dire consequences. Caught between conservative traditions and modern day desires, the couple must face their uncertain future.Read More »

Quote:
A widow and her father live alone and make a living by mending oil lamps and making charcoal.Read More »

Quote:
The Silence (Sokhout), a startlingly fresh and elegant work, is about a ten-year-old boy, Khorshid, who is blind. Khorshid’s father, in Russia, has abandoned him and his mother, who in order to sustain their existence fishes in the river on which the rural dwelling that includes their threadbare apartment is situated. This woman has no other choice but to rely on Khorshid’s meager income for rent. It is not enough, however, and in a few days’ time they will be evicted by the landlord, a greedy, powerful presence whom we never see except for, once, as a hand knocking at the door. A strange, elliptical film of haunting, limpid visual beauty, The Silence ends with two events: the eviction, as the mother, who is calling for her son, and her one great possession, a wall mirror, symbolic for art and inspiration, that is, humanity’s spirit, are rowed across the river, the mirror’s reflection in the water symbolically linking human spirituality and Nature; and the boy, as usual off on his own, passing forever into a life of the imagination in which he is able to orchestrate sounds in his environment—to which his blindness has made him acutely sensitive and receptive—into a finished piece, one in fact familiar to us as the opening movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Only a fool could miss the social and political implications of such a film, and the government, not at all fooled in this regard, responded brusquely. The Silence was banned in Iran.Read More »