Discoveries from Iran World Cinema

Masoud wants to leave his wife Parvaneh and their daughter and go to Europe. But before that they going on a trip to see some of their relatives. In the way a stranger who is injured rides ...

An old man with a hearing aid tires of listening to the noises of the town. But when he takes his aid out he can't hear his grandchildren coming to see him.

Two young men with an inner desire for a tranquil existence, free from impurities and injustice, find their mutual companionship more rewarding than their relationships with their previous ...

Ibrahim is a runner who claims he has got insomnia caused by a near-drowning incident. He says he has not slept for 10 years. He has broken the record for non-stop running by running for 30 hours from the north of Iran (Astaneh Ashrafieh) to Tehran. He tries to attract attention so he can get a good job. He catches the media’s attention but his attempt to find a desirable job fails.

If 18-year-old Sonita had a say, Michael Jackson and Rihanna would be her parents and she'd be a rapper who tells the story of Afghan women and their fate as child brides. She finds out that her family plans to sell her to an unknown husband for $9,000.

Shamsi and her sister Saaghi set out from Shiraz to Tehran in search of work to support their elderly father. In her efforts to find a job, Shamsi discovers that employers intend to deceive women looking for work and reject them. She disguises herself as an tough guy and is hired as the driver for a wealthy man.

The bandit band led by Luichi Pam Pek, who is the number two guerrillas of the group, captures a mine owner's safekeeper ...

At the first days of the Iran-Iraq war, Taleb, the lord of the Malekieh village, helps the Iraqi army to enter the village. Rahman, a twelve-year old teenage who is a shepherd working for Taleb, is the only one allowed to commute in the area. Jaseb, Rahman's friend, who is recently finished his military service escapes from the village and has to kill an Iraqi soldier. He is also injured and hides in a barn. Rahman finds out about him and tries to help him ...

The peaceful life of the members of the Rabbani family undergoes changes with the unexpected arrival of a snake, the discovery of an exquisite manuscript and a mysterious hole.

A wealthy man suddenly spreads the rumor that he has donated all his wealth to charity in order to reform his careless and lazy son. The son is forced to get a job. Soon, he meets the daughter of another wealthy man, and after a while, they both develop feelings for each other.

Despite multiple suitors, Maryam is determined to preserve her independence. Her cousin Naghmeh, however, is cast down by her own lack of suitors. Maryam takes it upon herself to find a suitable match for Naghmeh.

In a monitored room, a woman asks for help to find the camera her husband installed.

Donya is a wealthy woman but she is not living a happy life, she goes to a psychiatrist and starts telling him the story of her life; how she has gotten married and widowed three times.

The story of a soldier who is in his last days of the military service and the problems which occur to him on the road. He steps on a path to trouble when he disobeys his commander who had always been very kind to him like a father.

Iman wants to go and fight in the Iran-Iraq War, but he has some problems that he has to solve first. The problems consist of his daughter’s wedding and treating his blind son. He is busy trying to solve these two problems when his other son returns from the front with wounded legs. Iman forgets about going to the front and goes to several hospitals with his two sons seeking care for them. When the hospitals cannot solve his sons' problems he takes them to a holy place to be cured.

A man is in love with a girl and tries everything to get her, not even sparing himself, and finally, on the wedding night, he stabs himself with a razor blade...

Banned in Iran this experimental film uses fictionalized, grainy, home video footage to tell the story of the abusive relationship between a successful middle aged Iranian businessman and his 18 year old wife, Goli. She has just received a camcorder as his birthday present and the entire story is told from the view of this camcorder. Goli has lived with him and been his sex slave since he took her captive as a nine year old from her family in the Kurdish rebellion. Now she is pregnant, but as she starts to talk back to him and he discovers that she has learned English and started to read, he again is making her more and more a prisoner in his home.

A director of a television series on the history of cinema, who has been grappling with the screenplay of his first feature film, receives an assignment to oversee the installation of a television relay station in a remote region of Zahedan province. He has already hired Turkmen tribespeople for his film and selected his filming location. Meanwhile his wife, who is working on her Ph.D. dissertation about the Mongol invasion of Iran, attempts to dissuade him from accepting the assignment. One night, while working on his history of the cinema series, the director fantasizes a diegetic world that consists of clever juxtapositions of his different worlds: the history of cinema, the history of the mongol invasion, his own film idea and his imminent assignment to the desert.

On the first day of the performance, the main actor disappears...

Sohrab, a provincial young writer, is lost in the desert on the way to Tehran to get a publication license for his book on old Persian poetry, but the trip involves some bizarre events.

Two homicide detectives investigates the murder of a woman ...

Two gangs of criminals have really annoyed the police with their widespread destructive activities.

Noted Iranian actress Susan Taslimi plays an impoverished single mother who agees to marry off her 13-year-old daughter to a middle-aged man in return for a mare, which will help her earn an income and provide for her younger children. Director Ali Zhekan paints a stark picture of poverty and patriarchy in rural Iran (the mother stores her rice in a container hidden in a tree; her brother, who brokered the wedding, mercilessly beats the recalcitrant child), but this 1986 film is distinguished mostly by Taslimi's increasingly fiery performance as the mother decides to defend her daughter's freedom.

Reza is an artist who dreams of traveling to Cannes and meeting the gratest living figures of cinema. He travels to Paris to meet Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen and give his screenplay to them. In the end, Reza who has lost his money because of a fellow countryman, without meeting Spielberg, awaits in a corner of Cannes dreaming he's returning to Iran.

The film "Meeting the Wizard" is the story of two gentlemen, one is naive and the other is clever, and tries to increase his wealth with big deals, while the simpler gentleman fantasizes about his life.

Tuba works daily at a grueling textile factory in Iran, returning home every night to deal with the rest of her problematic family, which includes: a pregnant daughter whose husband beats her regularly; a teenage son, who's been getting into trouble due to his burgeoning career in radical politics; and an older son who goes to great lengths--such as attempting to sell the family's meager house--in order to get an engineering job in Japan as a means of getting out of Iran.

After Ebi has a near-death experience, he sees a vision of heaven. Upon returning to Earth he encounters an unconventional angel who gives him information about the future of a beautiful woman he has become enchanted by. Ebi feels he must convince the woman to mend her immoral ways to avoid her terrible fate. With the aid of an incompetent friend and the angel, they attempt to track her down and encourage her to repent.

Amir, who defuses missiles that fall on Iranian territory, insists on celebrating his wedding despite the dangerous situation made by the Iran-Iraq War.

A thief comes out of prison and begins searching for his sister. Along the way, he meets another thief, a girl, they work together to gather money, but things don't go well.

Rezvani, the director of a housing cooperative, is demanded by the shareholders to fire Farid Sadri, the contractor and the supervisor of the high-rise towers construction project, who could not manage to bring the construction process to an end on the due time, and find someone else to substitute him...

An anthology directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Testing Democracy) and Dariush Mehrjui (Dear Cousin is Lost)

Abbas, a motorcycle courier driver for a fastfood restaurant, accidentally follows the car of a famous blogger. The blogger thinks Abbas is a thug; The simple event turns into an accident and all this happens while her phone is recording a live online session. After the live goes viral, a series of events, shake up everyone's life.

A young man named Sadegh who is supposed to bring contraband to Tehran and deliver it to a gang, puts the empty bag that previously contained contraband into one of the railway safe deposit boxes and takes the key with him.

A young widow takes over her late husband’s truck stop café, keeping hidden in the kitchen so as not to cause a scandal in Iran’s conservative society. But her brother-in-law, out of familial obligation, wants to take her as a wife and also take over the café. Meanwhile a Greek trucker who is a frequent café customer is slowly entranced — at first by her sublime cooking ability, and then by her.

Iran and Spain have agreed to launch a major project on Honduran Island in southern Iran, companies and many people have been keen to win the bid ...

An intimate documentary shedding light on the life of veteran Iranian actor, Ezzatollah Entezami.

Mitra is a famous lawyer who one day a crime happens in his office. Therefore, he is forced to start an investigation about one of his clients to defend himself, and in this way he faces problems that even endanger his job.

Haaj Ebraam is a tailor who spends his days in his ancestral tailor's shop to earn the money for his daughter's wedding. One day, he gets a special delivery. In a letter, his father wrote to him that he has left him with magic buttons, their family heirloom. The buttons in the two jars bring good and bad fortune to the customers, but Ebraam shall not be entitled to intervene with the justice of the world, and he should not choose buttons for people's clothes based on his own judgment. Ebraam, however, soon gives up trying to carry out his father's order and takes over the distribution of the world's fortunes.

Young man Farid relies heavily on his luck, working in a casino in Beirut, and when he meets the artist Jihan and falls in love with her, his life changes forever.

A wood smuggler is arrested by the police. His family should pay the debts while he is in the prison.

A young woman is murdered by her own father, with the help of her younger brother. She is secretly buried in the cellar, a space where the women of the family weave carpets and perform other domestic chores. Her loss, or perhaps her presence, continues to haunt the family as it reverberates through the following generations. Ayyari’s film is staged exclusively in this house and was banned several times in Iran.

short film by marjan ashrafizadeh

Firooz is a fun-loving man who cheats on his wife, Parvin. When Parvin discovers that Firooz is having an affair with Leila, her friend, she tries to get back at him to make him angry. She tells Firooz that she will return to his house only if she is allowed to cheat on him.

Asghar kills Mohammad during a fight. Pursued by Mohammad’s older brother, he takes refuge in the home of his friend Davoud, who is soon to marry his cousin Mehri. However, one night, in Davoud’s absence, Asghar, in a drunken state, rapes Mehri...

While the village headman and Mashhadi Bagher want to marry Leyla off to Eynollah, Leyla runs away and, together with Samad, sets out for the city. On the way, they encounter two city youths, Sami and Lili, who bear a striking resemblance to them. Samad and Sami, and Leyla and Lili, exchange clothes and head off to the city and the village in each other’s place…

Do you know how many washing machines can be bought with six million euros?

Willy Loman, an aging, failing salesman, struggles to accept reality and his failure to achieve the American Dream.

Twelve stories, one per month, from April to March. They all take place in the same place—inside vehicles—and during the “magic hour.” The characters also experience similar situations: they are hesitating to make an important decision in their lives, a moment that will mark them forever.

Based on true events, this movie depicts of the sacrifices made by the Iranian Air Force at the unset of the Iran-Iraq war. In particular the story of the fighter pilot Yadi Sharifirad based in second tactical airbase of Tabriz.

It is the story of a family who come to Iran after their father's death to receive their share of their father's property. They gather together to read the father's will and begin dividing the inheritance. But the strange thing in the will was that they have to fully implement the conditions stated in the will in order to get their father's property. A strange situation that upsets all their mental equations. They are obliged to fulfill all the conditions of the father in the will

a comedy set during the 70s

Habibollah Khan and his daughter Maliheh complain to Amir about his nephew Hashem. Hashem, a close friend of Amir and delaying his marriage to Maliheh, is involved in a devious plot. Amir, engaged to marry Azar and a driver for a mining company, carries the miners’ wages to the mine at the end of each month.

The story of a young poor aspiring filmmaker who is trying to raise money to make a short film about a man who stops trains while having to deal with family issues such as his mother's illness.

Rezvan, a devout woman, proposes a temporary marriage to help a woman after an earthquake, choosing a young girl named Maral. Tensions rise between Rezvan and Maral, leading Rezvan to distance Maral from her husband. Maral seeks help from Rezvan’s friend, Faegheh, and later marries Faegheh’s son. Rezvan regrets her actions and their consequences.

Anoosh and Arash are at the center of Tehran’s underground techno scene. Tired of hiding from the police and their stagnating career, they organize one last manic techno rave under dangerous circumstances in the desert. Back in Tehran they try their luck selling their illegally printed music album without permission. When Anoosh is arrested, there seems to be no hope left. But then they receive a phone call from the biggest techno festival in the world. Once landed in Switzerland, the haze of the instant euphoria evaporates quickly when the seriousness of the situation starts to dawn on them.

The discovery of a rare turquoise brings the life of Yunus, who is the owner of the mine, trusted and big of the city, into a dangerous path.

Javid takes the responsibility for the methamphetamine found in his car to save his wife from going to prison. After his release, many people come forward to use him for their own good.

A journey to a dream through an encounter between Suna, a twelve-year-old girl who uses leaves as a blanket, and an old man who possesses secret knowledge. A reflection on friendship between a father and a daughter, a teacher and a student, an adult and a child, and the path that can turn the impossible into possible… The invented letters are inspired by the old Armenian symbols.