بَرد
Directed by Hamid Jafari • 2015 • Iran
Swathed from head to toe in black, a woman is breaking stones out of a rock wall using a crowbar and her bare hands. For several minutes we watch her prying, pushing, bashing, awkwardly wrestling in her flapping robes, until the block she is after finally comes crashing down, right next to the lens of the low camera and her bare feet. Stone by stone, the blocks are loaded onto a truck, and the driver gives her some money – she has earned her wage. In a stone cave dwelling they built themselves, she tends to her elderly husband before returning the next day to the never-ending work. Her daily routine resembles the torment of Sisyphus – a dusty chore she is doomed to repeat forever. The stony, reddish moonlike landscape of southern Iran and the traditional way of life lend an almost biblical atmosphere to this serene, aesthetically filmed visual poem. Like the arid, unending landscape, the woman’s existence seems to lack any dynamism, gradually raising questions about the meaning of life.
کاغذپارهها
Directed by Behzad Nalbandi • 2019 • Iran
During the times when Tehran hosts foreign dignitaries, the local authorities clean up Tehran’s urban image through an ‘urban beautification’ process which includes the rounding up of unsavory characters from the city streets; i.e. drug addict...
داشتن یا نداشتن
Directed by Niki Karimi • 2001 • Iran
To Have or Not to Have marks the directing debut of Niki Karimi, the best-known Iranian actress. Her documentary looks at the problems childless couples face in a society where infertility could seriously threaten a marriage.
