For his second feature, Iranian director Shahram Mokri was inspired by a story which seems more fitting for a gruesome murder movie or slasher horror. In 1998. the owners of a restaurant in northern Iran were arrested after they were caught having served human meat in their dishes to their guests. However, he also aimed to further his skills in film and cinematic form, as well as expand on the themes he had introduced in his first feature, “Ashkan, the Sacred Ring and Other Stories”. One of the most interesting aspects, and ultimately a quite demanding, was to use a single-take approach, changing the perspective from one character to the next and utilizing one location, a small lake and the forest close by. “Fish & Cat” thus would manifest the reputation of Mokri within the festival circle and audiences, winning the Horizons Award at Venice Film Festival 2013.
from Vinegar...
from Vinegar...
- 6/26/2022
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
It would be a mistake to take the synopsis for Abed Abest’s Killing the Eunuch Khan at face value. This is not a film about a serial killer in the generic sense of the word. Khan (Ebrahim Azizi) isn’t some cult leader à la Charles Manson sending his disciples into the world to murder people in his name. Nor is he a monster in the vein of Jigsaw, entrapping victims to do his dirty work in the hope that doing so will earn them their freedom. Khan doesn’t even appear onscreen until about a third of the way through, ushering in a fracturing of focus that moves our attention from a single vantage point towards an unexplainable overlapping of time and space. You must think bigger.
Who else can be considered a serial killer pulling strings of others to kill in their name? A better question might...
Who else can be considered a serial killer pulling strings of others to kill in their name? A better question might...
- 2/1/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
The idea of a radiograph - showing the inside of something that reflects what has happened on the outside - is a strong metaphor Firouzeh Khosrovani's documentary, which considers the sociopolitical changes in Iran through the microcosm of her own family. The director offers a creative approach to the subject, using archive footage, home video and family photos, overlaid with her own observations (voiced via narration by editor Farahnaz Sharif) and imagined re-enacted conversations between her parents (played by Soheila Golestani and Christophe Rezai) - a slightly stilted device at first but one which, as the film progresses, becomes increasingly evocative as we become more accustomed to it.
Firouzeh's parents represent two very different faces of Iran. Her mother Tayi - who the director notes married her radiographer father's photograph in proxy fashion while he was away studying in Switzerland - is a devout Muslim. Her father, Hossein, meanwhile,...
Firouzeh's parents represent two very different faces of Iran. Her mother Tayi - who the director notes married her radiographer father's photograph in proxy fashion while he was away studying in Switzerland - is a devout Muslim. Her father, Hossein, meanwhile,...
- 4/22/2021
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Born in Tehran, Firouzeh Khosrovani finished her artistic studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera and made her debut “Life Train” in 2004. In 2007 she directed “Rough Cut”, a documentary about mutilated mannequins, where disturbing reproductions of the plastic female figure become a metaphor for the veiled Iranian woman. Her sixth film, “Radiograph of a Family” triumphed at IDFA 2020, winning the main award at the Competition for Feature Length Documentary and the Competition for Creative Use of Archive
On the occasion of the film screening at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, we speak with her about shooting a movie about her family that functions as a metaphor for the history of Iran, the two different Irans, her mother’s radical change after the Revolution, the alienation of her father, love and many other topics
Why did you decide to shoot a film about this particular subject? What was your procedure in...
On the occasion of the film screening at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, we speak with her about shooting a movie about her family that functions as a metaphor for the history of Iran, the two different Irans, her mother’s radical change after the Revolution, the alienation of her father, love and many other topics
Why did you decide to shoot a film about this particular subject? What was your procedure in...
- 3/17/2021
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Be a Dragon: Haghighi’s Enticing Hodgepodge Defies Categorization
Director Mani Haghighi stakes a claim as one of the most innovative new voices out of Iran with his standout fifth feature, A Dragon Arrives!. Systematically defying easy categorization, the slippery political allegory can just as easily be referenced as noir, horror, mystery and docu-hybrid, utilizing a myriad of hat tricks as its increasingly strange and sometimes hopelessly complicated narrative unspools. Though it may be too baffling to attract casual viewers, those relishing a challenge should delight in this mystifying feature which promises to yield multiple interpretations through extensive viewing. Seemingly entrenched in the past, it is perhaps more of an allegory on the present, a puzzling ghost story spectacularly coated (or coded) in fantastical elements.
In 1964 Iran, cultivated detective Babak Hafizi finds he has been abducted by his own agency, waking up to a menacing interrogation from his boss, Major...
Director Mani Haghighi stakes a claim as one of the most innovative new voices out of Iran with his standout fifth feature, A Dragon Arrives!. Systematically defying easy categorization, the slippery political allegory can just as easily be referenced as noir, horror, mystery and docu-hybrid, utilizing a myriad of hat tricks as its increasingly strange and sometimes hopelessly complicated narrative unspools. Though it may be too baffling to attract casual viewers, those relishing a challenge should delight in this mystifying feature which promises to yield multiple interpretations through extensive viewing. Seemingly entrenched in the past, it is perhaps more of an allegory on the present, a puzzling ghost story spectacularly coated (or coded) in fantastical elements.
In 1964 Iran, cultivated detective Babak Hafizi finds he has been abducted by his own agency, waking up to a menacing interrogation from his boss, Major...
- 2/22/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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