This programme takes viewers on a journey through a world where memories linger on, stories travel, and reality meets myth. Between personal destinies and collective experiences, powerful narratives unfold about loss, belonging, and the traces people leave behind. Poetic imagery and mysterious atmospheres weave past, present, and legend into a multilayered panorama of Iran.
Translation of Ebb
Javad Abdolahzade / Iran 2019 / 13'14" / colour / Farsi / Fic/Exp
Why should you be afraid? People who play with the glory of the sea do so to get closer to fear. This is the story of a family who loves fear and destruction. Fear is the most honest emotion and reminds us of absence and destitution.
Perturbation
Rouzbeh Akhbari / Iran 2021 / 15'56" / colour / Farsi / Doc/Exp
This poetic assemblage follows a filmmaker couple on the island of Hormuz during the month of Muharram, when Shia Muslims undertake a prolonged period of mourning for the death of Imam Hossein, a religious figure who later became a source of inspiration for Safavit imperial projects. The couple trace various microhistories attributed to missing sailors and bring into focus the occult of Portuguese colonial myths related to the island’s legendary iron-rich, edible red soil.
Deer
Hadi Babaeifar / Iran 2022 / 13'46" / colour / Farsi / Fic
Winter has descended on a mountain village in Northern Iran. Still in serious condition, Ehsan’s brother returns from the hospital as snow falls. While the mysterious apparition of a deer in the nearby forest causes a stir in town, Ehsan grows increasingly worried about his brother. An ancient legend tells of an angel of death that takes on different forms. When the deer appears at the window in the dead of night, Ehsan sets off to save his brother.
I Am Trying to Remember
Pegah Ahangarani / Iran/Czech Republic 2021 / 15'33" / DCP / colour / Farsi / Doc
I asked: «Why have they erased you?» He said: «Maybe they are scared.» I said: «Whoever is scared, should erase themselves.» He said: «In that case, the faces of the living would all be gone and only the dead would remain.»
City of Poets
Sara Rajaei / Netherlands 2024 / 21'22" / colour/black & white / English/Farsi / Doc
In a small, semi-utopian city, all the streets are named after poets. When war begins, new neighborhoods emerge to accommodate the refugees. The streets are renamed after fallen soldiers. Soon, the citizens find themselves lost amid the memories of the forgotten poets.
