Stranger and the Fog
In a remote seaside village, the peaceful lives of the residents are upended when they spot a mysterious boat drifting toward the shore. Upon pulling it in, they find a weary and wounded stranger named Ayat, who has no memory of how he got there. He only recalls being attacked and barely escaping with his life. As Ayat tries to rebuild his sense of self and uncover the truth about his past, he becomes a source of curiosity and suspicion in the community.
The House Is Black
Set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness," of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.
Close-Up
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
A Moment of Innocence
A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.
Terrestrial Verses
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.
Reading Lolita in Tehran
As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.
Grassland
The truth carries a heavy burden, whether it is said that it sets off a storm, or it remains in the heart that disturbs man. Between telling the truth and revealing a secret or being silent and expedient, one is preferable to the other.
Bashu, the Little Stranger
During the Iran-Iraq War, Bashu, a young boy loses his house and all his family. Scared, he sneaks into a truck that is leaving the area. He gets off the truck in the Northern part of the country, where everything from landscape to language is different. He meets Naii, who is trying to raise her two young children on a farm, while her husband is away. Despite cultural differences, and the fact that they do not speak the same language, Bashu and Naii slowly form a strong bond.
×
Bahram Beizai
Director
Ebrahim Golestan
as
Narrator
Alireza Khatami
Director
Ali Asgari
as
Eran Riklis
Director
Golshifteh Farahani
as
Azar Nafisi
Reza Diako
as
Bahri
Pejman Jamshidi
as
Amir Hossein
88%