Discoveries from Iran World Cinema

“Saralish” means arranged marriage. In rural Iran, men dominate. A little girl is exchanged by another one, not even knowing what is happening to her, and she is now the wife to an old man. And the mothers have no say in this. But when an afeghani woman who has been educated in Germany returns to solve her own marriage arrangement that took place before she was even born, the situation of all the women there only gets worse. In the meantime, the boys play with the remains of war but also begin discovering new paths. An alert to human rights situation.

A short documentary that inspects the effects of 1963 Land Reform Laws in Iran by Mohammad Reza Shah.

The villagers have decided to make a sacrifice.

Five short films

After meeting a stranger, a man in the terminal has to choose between doubt and trust.

This film is the story of a man and a woman (couple) whose momentary decisions ruin their lives. After an accident, he regrets what he has done and takes pills.

A documentary that depicts the murders of the first female serial killer in Iran called Mahin Ghadiri.

Five short films

Persian Garden, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the largest and most ambitious art exhibition in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In any war, there is always a soldier who has lost and the women who are waiting for him to return. The dreams these women weave carry them to the farthest seas. Knowing there is no return, they weave and weave to treat the wounds of war.

This short documentary pictures Abadan city in southern Iran in the early 70s and how the National Oil Industry development has affected its progress.

A Still image film, narrated by Ghazi Rabihavi.

A young theatre company is rehearsing Macbeth in their director's home in Tehran. The director works with them from Paris over Skype. Their rehearsals are disturbed when the director's lifeless body shows up on their doorstep.

The state of water in the world is critical, but the relationship between a man and a fish that are in the story is more critical.

A Portrait of the doctor "Manouchehr Sotoudeh" a professor of history. The famous professor Shafiee Kadkani says about him: Anyone who wants to research history should refer to Dr. Sotoudeh's work.

Life of an editor who works for Islamic Republic of IRAN Broadcasting and feels like Frankenstein, creating a monster. Imaging of all movie sequences have been done with a cell phone.

A comedy movie about someone who wants to commit a crime.

A woman, blocked by three men, cannot make the right decision.

Skateboarding is still a new sport in Iran, which turns skaters into an exotic curiosity, watched sceptically on the streets. Joining two guys, Ali and Erfan, and one girl, Elham, on the skateboard “Kids of Tehran” explores not only the streets of Tehran but also the homes of these three skaters.

Hello. How are you? Today must be your 18th birthday. because we are making this film. to give you on your 18th birthday We just found out today. You're in Mahshid's belly so we're recording from this moment. to be your 18th birthday present.

A discovery journey to the ancient sites and forts of Iranian Azerbaijan, Zahhak castle near Mianeh and the Babak Khorramdin stronghold in Kalaybar, who fought the Abbasid Caliphate in early centuries of Islam in Iran.

A boy named “Mahdi” lost his firefighter father who saved a little girl from a deadly fire. Out of missing his father, Mahdi decides to write him a letter and send it to the sky (heaven) with two helium balloons. A stranger receives the letter accidentally, reads it and decides to reply on behalf of Mahdi’s father to end Mahdi's confusion and grief.

A short film from early works of Majid Khadem.

In the course of Iran's ban on women's presence in football stadiums, Saba, 22, disguises herself as a boy to sneak into the stadium at her father's suggestion. Her father takes her to a traditional cafe instead of the stadium. Asking her how hard it is to hide her true identity, he lets her-now impersonating a boy-in on the secret that he realized he could not be a man any more when Saba was three, but he had to hide it for years to let her daughter feel having a father. On the pretext of helping her enter the stadium, he creates a circumstance where his daughter has to put herself into his shoes, thereby hiding her true identity. He then tells her that he intends to continue living with his true identity from now on.

A documentary about a rural family in Iran that has two teenage daughters, with their oldest child working to help the family. Together they face difficulties and obstacles, especially because she uses a motorcycle for work which is forbidden for women.

The documentary "Blacks of Southern Iran" is about the history and origin of blacks in the south of our country, where they entered Iran and how they got used to the culture and customs there over the years.

This short film shows just a small part of an Iranian transgender’s emotions and limitations and the way he fights. This is a picture of the tough emotions a F to M transgender youth has to go through to get to live his original and true real self. Director and Actor of this short movie is an iranian transgender Shahrad Shahvareh himself, who is forced to wear a hijab until he gets an official sex change.

A documentary about Eskimos in northern Alaska made by the Ommidvar Brothers on their travels around the world

Part of the population of Sistan and Baluchestan province for historical-political and social reasons have not yet been able to obtain identity cards and are deprived of government social support such as insurance and subsidies. Lack of identity cards is a factor that leads to unemployment and wrongdoing.

Years ago, young men enlisted in the army to defend the "Democratic Sect of Azerbaijan," but the sect's rule lasted only one year. Soon after, the cult's most influential soldiers and cadres were arrested and deported to Siberia. Now, after sixty years, each of them resides in one of the liberated territories of the Soviet Union, longing to revisit their homeland.

Susan and Raha are two senior students studying Dramatic Arts in an art school. They are both candidates for the role of Johnathan Livingston from Richard Bach's, but soon after the audition some peculiar events start to arise and take place. More peculiar than Susan's appearance.

Matricide is an experimental documentary that will incorporate mythical fantasy into our environments harsh reality in order to illustrate the augmenting issues plaguing our planet. The film will be part dance video, using vibrant costumes carefully constructed to symbolize elements in nature. The other half of the film, incorporated into the shots of four Goddesses will be found footage/archives of various environmental disasters, ailments and issues brought about by man. As the documentary footage infiltrates our Goddesses serenity, their costumes fall apart, symbolizing the same environmental issues in the footage pertaining to their particular element.

"Premeditated Murder" is a 1399 drama film directed by Saeed Dolatkhani. Saeed Dolatkhani has used new actors in this work who have been able to play well. Ardalan, a young man from the working class, meets a mysterious stranger at the height of his financial and emotional crisis and finds himself in a complicated situation

The story of "Mr. Actor's Apartment" is about the life of a prominent cinema actor who is forced to sell his apartment due to debt. During this period, various events and comics by different segments of the people occur in the face of buying an apartment with Mr. Honarpisheh.

A Kurdish family is surrounded by criminals. They have only one bullet left to defend themselves and their daughter suffers from a chronic illness.

The film tells the story of students at a school in Turkey trying to help their teacher. The story of this film takes place in 1980.

Meysam, an adolescent from Tehran’s roughest neighborhood, has a dream to change his destiny through music, but his family disagrees.

When he loses his football playing with a couple of friends, Alireza is caught by a neighbour trying to get it back. Reporting the offence to his parents, Alireza soon finds himself disciplined for his inconsiderate behaviour. As punishment, his father makes him spend the whole day in his cart as it travels about the city. Through a small peephole, Alireza watches the world go by outside, and as he does, he is treated to a new perspective on life, one which may ultimately help him patch things up with his father.

A piano player tries to bring his wife back to life, but the deal awakens the devil inside him.

A little lion cub, born in a zoo, lives in a cage that is only ten steps long. On the eleventh step he bangs his head against the bars, but one day the zoo keeper leaves the cage door open.

Album is 2004 film written and directed by Reza Heydarnejad

Three siblings scour the streets of Teheran looking for an adult to pose as a guardian, because the time has come for the younger brother to be circumcised.

The documentary deals with the art of silversmithing.

A human being in search of his sexual identity finds himself in a continuous loop.

Kannar and his beloved camel Askoo continue their mundane pastoral lives amid the wilderness of Balochistan.

A young married woman who falls in love with a young draper. He asks her to run away with him, but destiny says otherwise.

A portrait of stick-figure kids who don't fit in at home; they bring their rainbow of colors out into the world and meet each other.

Son of the revolution is a documentary about the life and death of Sadegh Ghotbzadeh

We never had a kid! But now we have a kind and she is dead! An old couple is naming a baby while outside their private life is congestion around the river; a kid has been drowned. Adapted from the story Entrusted to Earth From the book Cheetahs That Ran With Me By Bizhan Najdi The Copyright of this film has been registered upon the permit and under the contract of Nashre Markaz

Jonas is a single man cut off from the disintegrating world around him. His world is that of hangman in a system where governing non-entities forfeit people's lives. He goes forth in a ...

The border area of Iran. Amir goes beyond the greed hills and the sand dunes to get to his new school, only to find an old bus there. Amir spends the first night on the bus, let alone a single student. He is soon kicked out by the angry bus owner.

A woman is forced to marry her husband's brother in order to take care of her child.

Omid is a young student whose time is split between sorting out his sister's bursary and his own project on nuclear research...

Three women gather one afternoon to discuss their personal problems.

After surviving a suicide bomb attack, 12-year-old Roqaia finds herself in the middle of a media frenzy, as she deals with her trauma all by herself.

The story is about a suffocation city. That everyone opposes dictatorship, the smallest punishment is the cutting of the ear. In a rainy night, a man finds an ear on the ground…

This film is about a mentally handicapped boy who lives with his father and his father tries to educate him in a special way.