A ROCKY-esque tale of determination and grit, PLATFORM follows three Iranian sisters as they compete to become international champions of Wushu, a Chinese martial art. The sisters’ thrilling underdog story explores not only their dedicated training but also their surprising place in society as they challenge traditional gender roles on the path to success.

(Special thanks to @venerafilms)

Fight Feast (Bazm-e Razm) is about the vicissitudinous story of Iranian music between 1979-1989, the years just after the revolution through the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The narrative of restrictions and obstacles told by musicians, composers, and state authorities. The confrontation between music and politics. The simultaneous narration of two stories: the story of young people who sacrificed their lives for their homeland, and the story of musicians who on one hand entered the battlefields by their own language and on the other hand kept Iranian music alive and thriving.

The Story of Boulevard is a documentary about Keshavarz Boulevard, one of Tehran’s important streets, The film is in effect a line-up of histories, events, and narratives of the place and it’s deep-rooted desires and contradictions waxing and waning, a course that makes Boulevard a collective belonging.

Davood Ashrafi is an independent filmmaker based in Tehran. A graduate of Cinema from the University of Art and a member of Khane Cinema. He worked for years in feature films as a camera assistant and is now a cinematographer. In his work, he is interested in the intersection between documentary and fiction film. His documentary The Story of Boulevard won the Art & Experience prize at the 11th Cinema Verite Festival and Best film with the focus of Tehran at Shahr 7th International Film Festival.

The Mannequins of Ghale Hassan Khan tells the story of the birth and life of some mannequins. They are all created in the same way but their faith is not the same.

Sam Kalantari, bornin 1976 in Tehran, is considered to be the fourth generation of Iranian documentary filmmakers. He began filmmaking academically the same time as he entered university to study civil engineering, he entered the realm of Iran’s professional filmmaking scene by making his first short film “The Unknown Desire” (Tamanaye Majhoul) in 2001. After completing his studies in Ireland, he entered the international realm of Iranian cinema as the director of films “from the House No.37” and “He”.

“Homework” is a documentary Abbas Kiarostami directed in 1989 after realizing he was having difficulties assisting his son with his homework. Kiarostami interviewed young male students at a local school to find out what kind of problems kids faced completing their homework, which in Iran requires a great deal of parental assistance (or did at the time).

Official Selection, Hot Docs Film Festival
Official Selection, New Horizons Film Festival

Inside this traditional Iranian dating agency, the manager, Mrs. Sadri, and her female employees are determined to find their clients a husband — regardless of their personal feelings or preferences.

Shuffling through files and making agitated phone calls, they constantly remind their mortified customers that it’s the man who gets to choose and that a woman without a spouse doesn’t have an identity. Even a temporary marriage would be better than remaining unwed, they say. Which doesn’t mean these surprising brokers don’t harshly lecture their male clients as well, or that their conservative views don’t come with a good dose of humor — especially since two of them are, ironically, single.

Shot almost entirely inside the confines of their tiny office, The Broker conveys a sense of claustrophobia that mirrors many women’s situations and offers a shocking, tragicomic reminder that the fiercest agents of the patriarchy aren’t always men.

Iran’s entry for the international feature film category
in the 92nd Academy Awards (the Oscars) in 2020.

“Finding Farideh” is a feature-length documentary about an Iranian girl named Farideh, who had been abandoned in a holy shrine in Iran when she was 6 months old in 1976, and then she got adopted by a Dutch couple and left Iran to the Netherlands to start her new life. Her parents promised to take her to Iran when she turns 18, but it never happened because they always thought that Iran is a dangerous country to go. Now, she overcomes her fears and starts a personal journey to her motherland Iran for the first time to meet three families who claim to be her biological family and to find out about her Iranian identity and culture.

Festivals:

• Cinema Verite International Film Festival, Iran
• Fadjr International Film Festival, Iran
• Iranian Film festival in Cologne, Germany
• Prague Iranian Film Festival, Czech Republic
• Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, USA
• Docudays UA International film festival, Ukraine
• Zurich Iranian Film Festival, Switzerland
• Middle East Now Film Festival, Italy
• Istanbul International Film Festival, Turkey
• Kazan International Muslim Film Festival, Russia

Awards:

• Winner of the Special Prize of the Tataristan’s President for “Humanity in Cinema” at Kazan International Muslim Film Festival, Russia
• Winner of 4 awards in Iran’s international documentary film festival “Cinema Verite” : (Best Film in Art & Experience Section, Best Editing, Best Music and Festival director’s special prize).
• Winner of the best documentary award at the 20th Iran’s Cinema Celebration Academy Awards.
• Winner of an honorary diploma for best directing and the award for best sound design in the 10th Independent Celebration of Iranian Documentary Films.
• Winner of the best documentary film in the 1st “Cinema Cinema Academy Awards”

Seventy-year-old Ali Aqa’s large, fleshy hands shake as he helps a newborn pigeon chick hatch. His pigeons, which he keeps on the roof of his home, mean everything to him. He calls his favorite white pigeon “sweetheart” and even takes her into his bedroom. His wife is less than enthusiastic about this, and has good cause to be jealous. He may be the embodiment of tenderness when dealing with his beloved pigeons, but this cantankerous old man is a trial for the human beings around him, as we soon learn from this dynamic portrait, shot up close to its protagonist. He orders his wife and son around and is consumed by paranoia. When it goes too far, even the film’s director Kamran Heidari abandons his strictly neutral position as an observer. The pigeons are Ali’s way of escaping reality—in particular, an impending hospitalization—but this proves ever more difficult. Ali Aqa’s small-scale, everyday story encompasses a great human drama: how do we accept the inevitable?

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.

Ghods founded MAHAK over 25 years ago. It quickly gained fame and support throughout Iran. Today it is one of the most highly functioning and trusted charities in the country. Countless children have been helped and saved.  A few years after founding MAHAK, Ghods, along with a group of Iranian philanthropists, established a fully equipped hospital in Tehran that specializes in treating children with cancer.

Winner of The Jean-Loup Passek Award for the best short or medium international film of the Filmes do Homem – Melgaço International Documentary Film Festival in Portugal.

‘The Season of Warm Breezes’ follows a teacher in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province who tries to eradicate illiteracy among female residents. She, who had been unlettered till the age of 12, sticks to her roadmap to educate girls and women.

Winner of Special Narrative Award, ARC festival in Germany, The Grand Prix at the 4th International Documentary Film Festival and Transmedia (RIOS) in Portugal, The Best Documentary film at the Lifft India Awards in India, and The Best Foreign Language Documentary Film Award in 2017 Cardiff International Film Festival in Wales.

‘Weavers of Imagination’ recounts the life of a number of visually-impaired people who weave rugs together and how the simple fact of working together fills them with a great sense of happiness.

Exilic Trilogy consists of three arthouse docudrama films from Arsalan Baraheni, the exiled Iranian-Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. The films present a well-known musician (Soleyman Vaseghi, a.k.a. Soli), a painter (Gholamhossein Nami) and a poet (Reza Baraheni). The films are biographical, poetic and musical, colliding with social, political and philosophical manifestations.

The first film is called “Light and Sound”, starring Soleyman Vaseghi (Soli), a well known Iranian musician who was forced to leave Iran after the 1979 revolution when music got banned by the regime. The film is about the light within the mind of the artist and the sound which he produces through his music in exile.

The second film is called “Frame & Wall”, starring Master Gholamhossein Nami who is known as one of the most important Iranian painters and visual artists. He simply had no political reasons to leave Iran but left for social purposes and ended up in Canada. The film is a visual art poetry which deals with the frames and the walls of this outstanding Iranian painter.

The third film is called “Alchemy & Dust”, starring Reza Baraheni, known as one of the greatest Iranian poets. He was forced to leave Iran about 20 years ago when he was blacklisted after signing a letter regarding the removal of censorship in Iran. This poetic docudrama is shot by Baraheni’s son, who suffered exile with him. The film is about the colliding of a poet and a filmmaker, a father and a son, the poetry and the camera.