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An In-Person Screening Event
BILLY WILDER THEATER - HAMMER MUSEUM
Los Angeles

The UCLA Film & Television Archive is proud to continue its long tradition of bringing the best cinema from Iran and the Iranian diaspora to Los Angeles. Ever mindful of the ongoing struggles facing Iranian filmmakers in their native country, this year’s program champions the work of new and emerging directors while bringing back to the screen a long-thought-lost landmark of Iranian cinema. Making its world restoration premiere, writer-director Marva Nabili’s The Sealed Soil (1977) was the first feature film directed by an Iranian woman and returns to the big screen almost 50 years after Nabili smuggled a workprint of the film out of Iran in a suitcase on the eve of the Iranian Revolution. We are also once again happy to present selected finalists from the 2023 edition of the Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival. The power of the moving image to connect people otherwise distanced by cultural, political and national divides and to lift them up in times of crisis has been embodied nowhere more profoundly over the last several decades than in the humanism, artistry and courage of Iranian filmmakers. The Archive is honored to highlight their work, again, at the Billy Wilder Theater.

All films from Iran are in Persian with English subtitles, except where noted.

Farhang Foundation is proud to be the sole sponsor of the UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema.

Friday, June 14 – 7:30 pm

Joonam

U.S., 2023

IN PERSON: Filmmaker Sierra Urich, Filmmaker Liam LoPinto, Filmmaker/Actor Arian Moayed

 

Premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, director Sierra Urich’s Joonam weaves a beautiful and beguiling portrait of three generations of Iranian women living in the diaspora. Drawn to learn more about her family’s history, Urich documents conversations with her mother, Mitra, and her grandmother, Behjat, and reflects on their stories and memories to make sense of her own identity as a second generation immigrant raised in rural Vermont. Revelations poignant and painful transform their relationships to each other and themselves in a film that ever foregrounds the power of home.

Director: Sierra Urich

DCP, Color, in Azerbaijani, English and Persian with English subtitles, 100 min.

Preceded by

The Old Young Crow

Japan, U.S., 2023

A captivating mix of live-action and animation brings to vibrant life the story of a young Iranian boy and a mysterious but inspiring encounter he had in a Tokyo cemetery.

Director/Screenwriter: Liam LoPinto
Cast: Naoto Shibata, Hassan Shahbazi, Keiko Yamashita

DCP, color, in Persian and Japanese with English subtitles, 12 min.

Saturday, June 15 – 7:30 pm

The Sealed Soil

Iran, 1977

Restoration World Premiere!

IN PERSON: Filmmaker Marva Nabili

 

The Sealed Soil has been digitally restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by the Golden Globe Foundation, Century Arts Foundation, Farhang Foundation and Mark Amin. Restored from the 16mm original A/B negatives, color reversal internegative, magnetic track and optical track negative. Laboratory services by illuminate Hollywood, Corpus Fluxus, Audio Mechanics, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Thomas Fucci, Marva Nabili and Garineh Nazarian.

The predictable rhythms of daily life in a rural village belie the radical upheaval and quiet resistance at work in writer-director Marva Nabili’s history-making debut. As her family and neighbors prepare to relocate their entire community to make way for a government-mandated construction project, a young woman rebels against the restrictions imposed on her after reaching marrying age. Refusing all suitors, she cultivates a private inner world that her family interprets as demonic possession. An extraordinarily subtle but powerful exploration of female subjugation and resistance, The Sealed Soil returns to the big screen after almost 50 years in this restoration world premiere.

Director/Screenwriter: Marva Nabili
Cast: Flora Shabaviz

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 90 min.

Friday, June 21 – 7:30 pm

Cause of Death: Unknown

Iran, 2023

A passenger van carrying a disparate group of travelers cross-country to Tehran becomes a microcosm of a society on the edge in writer-director Ali Zarnegar’s high-tension thriller. When one of them dies suddenly in the night with a relative fortune in U.S. currency, the others fear unwelcome entanglement with the authorities until fear turns to scheming and they each try to turn the situation to their advantage. Zarnegar ratchets up the suspense as secrets are revealed and paranoia mounts.

Director/Screenwriter: Ali Zarnegar
Cast: Banipal Shoomoon, Alireza Sani Far, Neda Jebraeili

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 104 min.

Preceded by

Born Again Virgin

U.S. / Iran, 2022

On the eve of her wedding a young woman faces intense pressure to undergo a surgical procedure intended to “restore” her virginity.
Winner, Second Prize - 2023 Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival.

Director: Teia Kane
Screenwriter: Saba Eskandari, Teia Kane

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles. 11 min.

Saturday, June 22 – 7:30 pm

Roxana

Iran, 2023

A listless young man splits his time between caring for his mom (barely), hanging out at the local underground pool hall and spending his best friend’s money. A chance encounter with Roxana after her car is broken into focuses his attention and soon he’s centered his life around helping her recover a stolen camera she needs for her wedding photography business. Helping her solve her problems, however, only deepens his own. Writer-director Parviz Shahbazi builds an arresting take on the experience of young Iranians struggling to find their way and start their lives in a world where one misstep can have the direst of consequences.

Director/Screenwriter: Parviz Shahbazi
Cast: Yasna Mirtahmasb, Mahsa Akbarabadi, Maede Tahmasbi.

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 119 min.

Preceded by

Titanic, Suitable Version For Iranian Families

Iran, France, 2023

A team of Iranian television censors debate the finer points of on-screen propriety while outside their office window more consequential forces are beginning to stir.

Director: Farnoosh Samadi

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 15 min.

Sunday, June 23 – 7 pm

Empty Nets

Germany, Iran, 2023

The rarefied but rough-and-tumble world of caviar smuggling is the milieu for writer-director Behrooz Karamizade’s feature debut. Amir and Narges are young and in love but that only means complications. She’s well-to-do with a father who demands a wealthy suitor. He’s working-class and newly unemployed. After finding work as a fisherman he’s determined to prove himself but shortcuts to quick cash prove too tempting as he feels Narges slipping away. Dramatic action on the Caspian Sea and in the back alleys of their coastal town makes this a particularly suspenseful critique of opportunity and tradition in Iran.

Director/Screenwriter: Behrooz Karamizade
Cast: Hamid Reza Abbasi, Sadaf Asgari, Keyvan Mohamadi

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 101 min.

Friday, June 28 – 7:30pm

Achilles

Iran, Germany, France, 2023

Worn down by the insurmountable obstacles he faced trying to make films, Farid (Mirsaeed Molavian) has resigned himself to working as a caregiver at a hospital in Tehran. Even there, his quiet refusal of administrative decrees leads to a demotion and assignment to the high security psychiatric ward. At his lowest, Farid finds a path back to life through the figure of a mysterious patient who — he learns — has been institutionalized as a political prisoner and whom he helps escape. A riveting story of resistance, writer-director Farhad Delaram’s feature film debut made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Director/Screenwriter: Farhad Delaram
Cast: Mirsaeed Molavian, Behdokht Valian, Roya Afshar

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 116 min.

Preceded by

Lioness

U.S.

A clarion call in support of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and to honor the “tenacity and fearlessness” of Iranian women in their “unyielding pursuit … towards their emancipation.“
Winner, Third Prize - 2023 Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival.

Director/Screenwriter: Arrad

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 5 min.

Saturday, June 29 – 7:30pm

Dark Matter

Iran, 2023

Director Karim Lakzadeh channels the French New Wave by way of Jim Jarmusch into this wildly unexpected and entirely welcome independent Iranian production. A trio of aspiring, young filmmakers throw caution — and the hijab (literally) — to the wind when they rob a local gangster to fund their DIY movie. Shot in black and white with an eye to bold angles, Dark Matter exudes a playful cool and an infectious love of cinema. This is a boy, a girl and a gun Iranian-style.

Director/Screenwriter: Karim Lakzadeh
Cast: Shadab Mahdiar, Keyvan Parmar, Iman Sayyad Borhani

DCP, B&W and Color, in Persian with English subtitles, 82 min.

Sunday, June 30 – 7 pm

In The Land of Brothers

France, Iran, Netherlands, 2024

Directors Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli tell a powerful story across three interconnected episodes of an Afghan refugee family’s generational struggle to make a home in Iran. Corrupt authorities, dehumanizing immigration laws and simply ironic twists of fate each take their toll. Nuanced and affecting performances from the largely non-professional cast and a piercing sense of trauma and injustice that never slips into the melodramatic contributed to Amirfazli and Ghasemi’s win for Best Directing in the World Cinema category at Sundance this year where their feature film debut made its world premiere.

Director/Screenwriter: Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli
Cast: Hamideh Jafari, Bashir Nikzad, Mohammad Hosseini

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 95 min.

Preceded by

Lost Swan

Iran, 2022

The haunting story of a rural school teacher who becomes a surrogate mother to raise funds for her gender transition surgery only to learn the prospective mother can’t pay.
Winner, First Prize - 2023 Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival.

Director: Ehsan Abbassei
Cast: Shakiba Asgari, Sepideh Jafari, Reyhaneh Razi

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 11 min.