Discoveries from Iran World Cinema

Darya has an unpleasant conversation with Samin at the party ergo Samin leaves.

A couple goes to the forest to sacrifice an animal to the goblins in order for their child to be born healthy, but they are not alone in this forest. The woman considers this a superstition until she believes it herself.

The daughter of one of the nomadic tribes, despite all the problems caused by the traditions and common beliefs about girls exercising, succeeds in many successes in the sport of king boxing. He tries to persuade the families of the girls in the area to encourage them to attend training classes in the "Black Tent" of the Nomads.

A reflection on education and an ode to the bonds that are formed by students at, (and in spite of,) the institution they are studying within. By weaving together footage from the 2021 anti-racist occupation of the Slade School of Fine Art with scenes from the install of the art school’s class of 2020 degree show, the academy emerges as a site of frustration as much as of achievement. Running over both events - , from the final touches of varnish being put on a painting to protest banners being unfurled across the building, - is text from former Slade student and tutor Christopher Kirubi’s poem ‘… - then love is the name’.

A short film, showing sceneries and ultimate landscapes of frozen realm of planet earth, the Cryosphere. Made by homemade materials.

Nasim is unable to carry on her daily life as usual. Something has changed for her.

During the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran, in the aftermath of the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, a medical resident finds her voice when the chaos in the streets comes to her hospital floor.

On a very dark night, in the boiling atmosphere of the recent Iranian uprising, a woman and a man travel through time and remember. Since September 2022, a large part of the Iranian population has been in revolt. Women and men are saying ‘no’. What is the content of this ‘no’? Totalitarian resentment condemns us to forget, but the film’s protagonists try to go back in time through their own memories-footages, and take us through the labyrinths of a society in search of its image. Memory-image is a weapon with which they hope to rescue a revolt, a liberation

A sketch artist finds himself in a nightmarish situation when he is visited by three mysterious men who want to inspect him.

In a religious family, a boy entering puberty finds a beautiful woman in his neighborhood very appealing and begins to secretly watch her through his binoculars… not acceptable behavior!

This animated documentary, created using puppets made from newspaper clippings, is about a Kurdish-Iranian family of four who died in the sinking of a migrant boat in the English Channel in 2020. At the time of the tragedy, there were ten more people on board than the vessel could hold. One of the victims was nine-year-old Anita, from whose perspective we follow the story. But did strict laws restricting safe border crossings change her fate? And how many more victims will they claim?

Mohsen became the butt of the joke when his friends saw his wet mattress with yellow stains are dried on his balcony. Now, he has to endure it in order to make an important decision.

The journey of a musician through the history and the myths surrounding the ancient mystical instrument called the tanbur.

Unusual love is created by unusual body.

Khabur is the longest tributary of the Euphrates, a transboundary river crossing the border between Turkey and Northeastern Syria. Climate crisis, prolonged drought periods, the ongoing war, embargo, water policies, and dam building across the border by the Turkish state are among the reasons contributing to the drying up of the Khabur River and the water crisis in the region.

In Tehran, the number of drug addicts has skyrocketed, leading to the establishment of a prison on the outskirts of the city for treatment and skill training. Four men - Mohsen, Mohammad, Vahid, and Hadi - are sent there after being arrested for drug use. Despite their different backgrounds, they all face their time in the center in unique ways.

Life of a person between year 2012 to 2019; who comes to an unknown village to make his movie.

A family's poignant quest to relocate their father's grave after 40 years becomes a transformative journey through life, death, and memory. As they navigate between the realms of the living and the deceased, their story exposes societal discrimination and explores the enduring power of love and remembrance.

It’s wartime in the Middle East and a Kurdish homeless family is to immigrate to European countries through the sea and something happens to them.

A young clergyman goes to one of the remote villages in Iran to start his career, and during the clergy and the job of painting his new house, he is involved in an event that overwhelms his life.

Everything is peaceful, until an unknown aggressor repeatedly breaks the living room window glass...

A young gamer in a PlayStation café conjures a video game chara­cter into reality to commit the perfect crime.

A teenage girl has abandoned a part of her ego and the hidden part is now striving to emerge and be noticed by the girl, in different ways. By remembering an old memory, the girl finally realizes about her suppressed feelings and emotions and tries to stand against her fears, in order to retrieve her hidden half.

Two friends attempt to revive a relationship after circumstances have forced them apart. Neda celebrates her 30th birthday in an Iranian prison, while the film’s director, Hoda, begins her 30s in a new country as an immigrant.

A girl who has been chosen by a young photographer as a model and her desire is to be the best...

Goli is a young girl from an Afghan immigrant family living in Tehran. To continue her studies at the university, she must travel to Afghanistan and obtain a legal Iranian visa not to be expelled from the university. Loneliness, poor financial conditions, lack of family support and the dangers in Afghanistan have made the trip very difficult for Goli. But she is not willing to get dropped out of the school and is resolved to overcome the obstacles.

The story of Lalezar street in Tehran

This documentary introduces Iranian Mandaeans and their rituals. Mandaeans are the followers of John the Baptist. Baptism in living water (flowing water) is the most important part of their religion, and that’s why they mainly live in proximity of Karoon, a river in Ahwaz province in Iran. While administering baptism, both baptizer and baptism receiver, appear in white outfits, and baptizer carries a cane made of olive tree branches. Before marriage, groom and bride go through the baptism process. Mandaeans temple is called Mandi, a place for mind and mysticism, in which all wedding ceremonies are held. During the ceremony, clergy brings groom and bride’s head in contact with each other as a symbol of unified souls and minds. Mandaeans have mainly been practicing the profession of goldsmithing and passing it from generation to generation.

It was not a ship, Raphael was a city floating on water, a strange and shameful city, where did he come from? Raphael is a very beautiful ship that was bought from Italy in the 50s. Many Italians were sorry for selling it to Iran and were exposed to selling this cultural heritage of theirs. Raphael experienced the revolution and then the war. Where is Raphael now?

The story of Shahid Morteza Javidi, an Iranian commander who was a shepherd and joined the holy defense front in the war imposed by Saddam on Iran and was known among the soldiers with the nicknames Uncle Morteza and Islu.

The Darkness Demon has swept over the world, trying to set the ending of Light, unlike the earlier promises and prophecies. It is in such an era that a flock of Red birds travel in search of the Red Fire; a Fire that according to the prophecies, wipes out the blackness and puts an end to the constant eclipse and absence of the Sun. But where are they going to find the Red Fire?

“Soo” is the story of a traveler who follows her reflection. Everywhere she goes, she becomes attached, and it becomes difficult for her to leave. She leaves a part of herself behind, a layer of her color. During her journey, her color gradually fades more and more until she loses it all. When she realizes her color has vanished, her reflection takes her to the world of reflections.

This documentary about Abbas Kiarostami doesn’t just show him as a filmmaker, but also as a more wide-ranging artist, to whose forms of expression poetry, photography, and graphic design also belong. A series of contemporaries who are also active in different artistic disciplines remember Kiarostami.

Incurable is a short film shooted in a southern city of Iran, in arabic language. a couple are searching for alost girl, on the day of her marriage.

The movie describes the situation of a lesbian girl who wants to leave the country in an illegal way.

At four o'clock early in the morning a strange voice talks on an answering machine and announces a surprise, a cardboard box is at the front door, "filled with voices and pictures of another time and place". This time is November 1977, two years before the revolution in Iran. The experimental short film in Beckett style jumps from one time zone to another.

A suitcase is about to leave its surroundings, but he soon realizes that things inside that load have weighed her down. The suitcase tries to lighten its load. He pulls something out of himself every time. But it is not light. Until he finally realizes that the things within him are not the cause of heaviness and in fact heaviness has another cause. In fact, memories, belongings, and attachments are the reason for the weight of luggage.

A documentary about coffee from the seeds to the machines for preparation, roasting, selling and how to consume it in the form of various drinks, plus a story that runs parallel to the documentary in which a guy tells about a strange thing that happened to him about coffee.

During the harvest, an old farmer encounters a group of children stealing his apricots.

In the land occupied by the sprayers' army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants, but one day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust and his curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary.

A girl who is the student of Abbas Kiarostami's film making workshop, wants to make a short film as her assignment. However, she does not manage to do so.

“Whisper in the Sound of Silence” Is a slice of a contemporary woman’s life that begins her journey to find the meaning of love. As a woman in a society in transition from tradition to modernity in Iran is looking for love; a country that bans political, religious and economic have overshadowed on people’s lives.

On presidential election in Iran, a pregnant woman close to her delivery time learns that she has no choice regarding the Caesarian section or natural delivery. Based on the nationwide regulations in Iran, despite her desire, she has to choose the “natural delivery”.

The film is the story of a pair of snails living peacefully in a beautiful plain but deciding to return to their hometown when one of them enters the city and enters a house of characters and also faces deadly accidents on the road.

An agama reptile from the lizard family falls in love with the female agama and forms a family And they live in peace with their child in nature until a predator enters their territory that causes fatalities for them.

Neda is a hospital nurse, in one of her shifts, she gets into a situation and steals her colleague's wedding ring to play the role of getting married in front of her colleagues in her next shift at another hospital.

The fourth film from Shahriar Hanife's series of experimental etudes, an Iranian researcher.

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In the spring of 2002, six young people drowned in the pond in Tehran Park.

Shot in winter in a difficult-to-reach mountainous region in north-western Iran, the film depicts the lives of nomadic shepherds who are believed to be descendants of the ancient Kadusian people. Mehranfar focuses a family’s daily life, determined by the care of the animals.

Roya is an Iranian dancer and the main narrator of the film. She describes herself as “partly a sample consisting of different layers” and gives an intimate speech to the audience. Roya questions the exoticizing gaze of western viewers. A mysterious snail that is connected to Roya opens up a story within the story by telling us about a roadtrip from Isfahan to Sari (Iran). Meanwhile Roya’s lover, a fabulous alienesque being, lands on earth to build a lush, revolutionary garden of pleasure.

This first feature film of Sahand Samadian relates the current situation of various young Iranians in today’s Tehran. Four groups of young Iraninan men and women and one married couple symbolize the reality of modern-day Iranian youth, living in a country with one of the world’s highest percentages of young people. We see what makes them tick as their attitudes towards religion, economics, culture and politics are explored.

A quiet and unsettling story of two trans people in love who have to find subtle forms of connection to validate their experiences at their workplace until they are able to escape and be their true selves.