Discoveries from Iran World Cinema

"A patient struggles to express his inner turmoil during recurring conversations with his psychiatrist, trying desperately to be heard."

A Lost Persian Film. Iraj meets Jasem, the manager of a cafe, in a fight. Iraj is an addict and the man who brought him drugs has been arrested. He provides for his needs, and Iraj is arrested by a detective. In Iraj's absence, Jasem provides for his mother and sister's financial needs. After Iraj is released from prison, he steals his mother's necklace to obtain drugs. Iraj catches his partner Jasem in the act, and the detective, who has arrested one of Jasem's men and forced him to cooperate, keeps an eye on them. Jasem and his men are suspicious of Iraj, but he shows his loyalty by cooperating with them every time. Eventually, the police succeed in trapping Jasem and his men.

A story of a relationship that involves lies.

Gholam, returning home one night, witnesses a murder on Lalehzar Street and goes to the local police station to report the crime.

Set on the uniquely colorful island of Hormoz in southern Iran, this film is a poetic love story between a man and a pigeon — his only companion for many years. This quiet yet powerful bond reflects human resilience and longing for connection in a society marked by repression and silence.

A Lost Persian Film. After graduating from the city, a young man returns to his hometown in a village in Qazvin to visit his old father and help him with his business. The young man gradually becomes interested in a pure village girl and proposes marriage to her. The boy protests against his father, who is trying to defile his fiancée, and after a fight with him, he marries the girl and leaves his father's house.

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Mr. Omidvar, who is a trusted employee of the bank, is assigned to transfer some gold and jewelry from Abadan to Tehran.

The story is about two friends, one of whom is moving away from his daughter and the other is trying to live with her again.

The Last Cigarette is a short film that delves into the harmful effects of smoking.

The fetus becomes aware in the mother's womb. It encounters the mother's body as its lifeworld; Meanwhile, that body itself is subjected to encounters with the outer world, which is inaccessible to the fetus. As a subject within a subject, The fetus perceives its lifeworld within another.

Hooman, a withdrawn man, drifts through the solitude of his repetitive life. As winter tightens its grip, an encounter forces him to confront lingering memories.

A theater directed by Alireza Koushk Jalali

A theater directed by Behzad Mohammadi

A theater directed by Rasoul Najafian

Something as simple as taking a bath or shower is not so easy for the protagonist of this Iranian short film. The most basic humanity will be revealed with an unexpected outcome.

Simin Behbahani, one of the greatest contemporary poet in Iran, started composing lyric poems at the age of fourteen and at the age of forty she was one of the most famous poets of Iran. It is said that those poets who start composing poetry from adolescence, the source of their taste dries around the age of forty. While Simin Behbahani reached the peak of composing poetry again at the age of forty and added forty new rhymes to her sonnets. She was always at the forefront of civic movements and incorporated everyday social events into lyric poetry.

The film Apple invites the audience to a unique reflection, exploring the boundary between understanding and not understanding. The first half is told from the apple’s perspective, transitioning to the seed’s perspective as the image fragments. This narrative symbolizes a "return"—from the complete form of the apple to the abstract concept of its seed. Using the myth of Adam and Eve symbolically, the apple serves as a silent witness, offering itself to humanity. The film aims to take viewers to an emotional depth that is felt but hard to articulate. I believe cinema, by shifting perspectives, can transcend image and sound to explore new, deeper concepts.

Khalil Sahragard’s documentary short follows an amputee in Kurdistan who carves prosthetics for others who, like him, have lost limbs to munitions left over from the Iran-Iraq war.

The story of a girl's life that has been destroyed due to the death of her mother. But her mother's death is not the main reason, and the external roots of the problem are slowly emerging...

The story of an Iranian woman, Tina, who questions her decision to keep her child due to the women's movement in Iran and the fact that the child is a girl.

Every day, a young trumpeter plays his trumpet from a high point facing the city and events around him suggest something is happening in society.

A 9-year-old Iranian girl plans to sue her parents after their bitter divorce in a lively and bittersweet film directed by her aunt. A lively contribution to the great Iranian tradition of films about the world of children.

A plant goes through trials and tribulations to survive and thrive.

Amin, an Iranian boy living in poverty during the pandemic, is gifted a stolen iPhone by his older brother. Not before long, the owner gets in touch.

During language classes the director is not only taught basic Persian by her teacher, he also opens the gates to Iranian history and culture. Gradually, the lessons morph into a poetic, visual collage that questions the term freedom and the meaning of revolution.

An old lady watching a film on VHS imagines herself in the said film where the relationships between a young boy and girl and two middle aged men cause her some trouble.

A 14-years-old teenager run away from his addicted father's house because he makes him live in a orphanage.Now he is trying hard to find his unseen mother even for once.Besides,he does not have a national Id card and this has caused many problems in his daily life.

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

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The story revolves around a late-night party of some young boys and girls which turns into a disaster after a transgender person joins them.

An Iranian experimental movie

An old mountaineer goes to the mountains with his friend. Due to the avalanche, he gets stuck in the mountains. The federation of professional mountaineers sends a team to save him, and on the other hand, the children of this mountaineer go to rescue their father too. Both groups arrive almost simultaneously...

A couple walk and talk

A group of siblings come back to Iran to read and follow their father’s will after his passing. One of his advices include them not entering the building on the other side of the garden. They don’t take notice and decide to pay the place a visit…

30 years after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, 'Sami' who is bruised by the death of his wife on a mine site; is still struggling to de-mine his mine-polluted land.

an iranian documentary

Yasha, a bird hunter, finds the dead body of a well-known man on a snowy day in a mountain town. He becomes involved in a 300 billion Tooman embezzlement after getting clues leading to finding the killers. He begins to seek his benefit in this adventure.

Hamoon, an actor and trans woman, is in love with her director, but he fails to see her for who she really is. As she struggles with her unrequited feelings, she also has to deal with the rejection from her conservative father, who refuses to accept her as trans.

The film is about a train carrying fuel for the army in 1979 during the revolution movement in Iran but with the help of revolutionary forces the train is redirected to a cold region of the...

To repay his debts, a father is forced to sell his daughter's sheep.

On an empty road, a man pulls over to give a ride to a hitchhiker holding a wheel but as the stranger approaches the car, the man gets too scared to let him in. Shortly after, while he's dining the hitchhiker gets off a truck recognizing the driver's car and comes in. The driver grabs a knife and ...

Salim Shaheen film from Afghanistan

The formation of a city named Tehran goes back to 200 years ago. Before that it was a small village resting between surrounding mountains. Many political and social events have happened in this course of time that all have left their trace on the walls of this city. Nevertheless, since the inception of the Islamic revolution in 1979 to now, written slogans on the walls and murals have experienced different forms and concepts. These events range from Revolution, Iran-Iraq war, economic reconstruction period to Reform and 2009 uprising.

The Caliph Harun al-Rashid and Ja'far al-Barmaki go disguised as merchants to the house of a young Persian named Rafiq, who is the leader of the beggars, and discover that Rafiq and his companions are plotting to overthrow the Caliph from his throne.

Iraj, Mr. Javanmard's secretary, goes to Mr. Paymard's house with a letter from Mr. Javanmard to propose to his daughter, Giti, for Farrokh, Mr. Javanmard's son. Mehraghdas, Mr. Paymard's wife, opposes the marriage because they don't know Farrokh. To test Farrokh, the couple introduces three girls as their daughters so that Farrokh can identify the real daughter among them.

Most of the times its like this...!

Since the death of her mother, eight-year-old Iranian Mina has lived with her biological father and his male partner in Berlin. Treated differently because of her family, Mina acts out against her dads. Family friend Shahla worries that Mina lacks female role models, and invites her to take part in a female-only religious ceremony, but she has her own problems with her rebellious teenage daughter. Rahman Milani astutely reveals the cross-cultural tensions between tradition and assimilation, religion and family, in his feature debut.

During the Iran-Iraq war an orphan boy is taken in by an old man who lives in a cabin deep in the forest.

With all its flaws You will do something with it You'd do something with it

Someone is searching for a specific lost thing and must find it before the lunar eclipse, or else be trapped in darkness forever.

A hardworking and capable young man rises to the position of company treasurer through his own merit. However, through the schemes of a man plotting to take control of the company, he becomes involved in gambling. Contrary to the schemer's expectations, though, the young man refuses to embezzle company funds.

A scheming woman, driven by greed, marries a wealthy old man. She then conspires with her chauffeur to murder him. Afterward, she attempts to seduce and win over the old man's daughter's young husband.

Khosrow is an elderly man living alone, exercising his daily routine, haunted by the overwhelming fear that one day he will die in solitude and his body will go unnoticed, left to rot. Beneath his strange isolation, however, Khosrow harbors a dark and terrifying secret.

As day turns to night, a solitary figure remains fixed before the camera while the world around him repeats itself in an endless cycle. As familiar moments return, the boundary between routine, memory, and inner unrest begins to dissolve.

In the midst of the French Revolution, madmen left the madhouses, as if they had found a new meaning in their lives.

The life of Saideh Ghods changed completely when her two-year-old daughter Kiana was diagnosed with cancer. As she confronted her daughter’s suffering, she became aware of the suffering of so many impoverished families in hospital corridors around the country who were dealing with children afflicted by cancer. When, due to the doctors’ timely diagnosis, Kiana was on the path to a full recovery, Saideh Ghods resolved to prevent the unnecessary deaths of children with cancer caused by lack of access to therapeutic facilities or insufficient financial resources.