The Freer and Sackler’s 26th annual Festival of Films from Iran features award-winning films, from social documentaries to dark comedies. Come celebrate with us online beginning January 14.
To encourage social distancing, the Meyer Auditorium is currently closed. During this time, films will be streamed and live conversations with filmmakers will take place online. While the Meyer is closed, you can also check the Freer and Sackler Blog for recommendations by Tom Vick, the museum’s curator of film, of Asian films that are currently available on various streaming services.
Featured Films:
Hit the Road
Panah Panahi, son and collaborator of embattled Iranian master Jafar Panahi, makes a striking feature debut with this charming, sharp-witted, and deeply moving comic drama. Hit the Road takes the tradition of the Iranian road-trip movie and adds unexpected twists and turns. It follows a family of four—two middle-aged parents and their sons, one a taciturn adult, the other an ebullient six-year-old—as they drive across the Iranian countryside.
Sun Children
The latest film from Majid Majidi (Children of Heaven, The Color of Paradise) is the story of twelve-year-old Ali and his three friends. Together they work hard to survive and support their families, doing small jobs in a garage and committing petty crimes to make fast money. In a turn of events that seems miraculous, Ali is entrusted to find hidden treasure underground.
Drowning in Holy Water
In this timely film from Afghanistan-born director Navid Mahmoudi, two young Afghan refugees named Rona and Hamed meet and fall in love on their way to Tehran, a stopping point on what they hope will be a journey to Europe.
The Deer
This classic action buddy film is one of the most famous in Iran, but until it was restored in 2021 (to include its once-censored controversial ending), it was virtually unseen outside the country. Directed by Masoud Kimiai, whose macho style has drawn comparisons to Sam Peckinpah and Sam Fuller, and starring the famed method actor Behrouz Vossoughi, it tells the story of a former boxer turned heroin addict who reunites with an old friend.
The Skin
This contribution of twin brothers Bahram and Bahman Ark to the evolving genre of Iranian horror movies is steeped in traditional Persian folklore and music. In it, a young man named Araz seeks to marry his true love, but his mother, a sorceress, has cast a spell to keep her son with her.
The Sun
Soheil Ghannadan won the Best Actor Award at the 2021 Moscow International Film Festival for his moving performance as the titular character in this blend of tragedy and dark humor. He plays Hamid, a forty-something slacker who still lives—and constantly bickers with—his mother, and burns with jealousy towards his brother, who found success in the United States after emigrating twenty years ago.
The Wasteland
The winner of no less than three prizes at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, including the prestigious Orizzonti Award for best film, Ahmad Bahrami’s second feature is set in a remote factory that produces bricks in the traditional way: using human labor. Many families of different ethnicities work there, and the boss seems to hold the key to solving their problems.
Iranian Horror Movies
Join Fordham University film scholar Hadi Gharabaghi for an introduction to the emerging Iranian horror movie genre. Learn about its formal and stylistic features as well as its thematic elements within the context of the sociopolitical and cultural transformation of Iranian society after the revolution.
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