According to the laws of Iran, Bahareh must have her traditional, chauvinistic husband accompany her to driving lessons so she and her instructor will not be alone.
Social & External
Bahareh Ahmadi
Keivan
Keivan's Wife
Mr. Shakiba
In 1980, a teenage boy escapes the unrest in Iran only to face more hostility in America, due to the hostage crisis. Determined to fit in, he joins the school's floundering wrestling team.
THE BRIGHT DAY weaves a story that has its roots in the complexity of Iran’s draconian laws governing capital punishment. A kindergarten teacher hopes to aid the father of one of her young students, a man accused of manslaughter, by convincing each of seven reluctant witnesses to come forward. No one lacks a hidden agenda in this drama in which shades of truth collide with self-interest and the specter of payback. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
Saad, a young Moroccan illegal immigrant, is planning a perilous journey to Canada with Reza, his Iranian lover. In Montreal, Saad is called upon to save his beloved from certain deportation to Iran, where inevitable punishment awaits.
The Journey of a young man who is making a documentary about forgotten narratives around an old piano, takes him through an unknown path towards restoring history, culture and identity of his homeland, Iran, in dusty and abandoned objects.
An experimental musical period drama about the witchhunts in 1595 in the south of the Netherlands. The film depicts the last days of the life of the young woman Heylken.
A young woman's wedding becomes a ritual of mourning when her sister and family die in an auto accident on the way to the wedding. The sisters' mother refuses to accept her daughter's death, and in the midst of wedding guests and mourners, including the drivers of the truck that caused the accident, she orders the wedding to take place. But how can the daughter marry in the midst of a wake and without the family's traditional mirror, which the sister was bringing to the service?
Nora is a young housewife and mother, living in a quaint little village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Nora’s life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody – until she starts to publicly fight for women’s suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 1971.
Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.
Prince Ehtejab, one of the last remaining heirs of the Qajar royal family, is suffering from tuberculosis, which he knows is fatal. He spends his last days alone in the magnificent rooms of his wintry palace, from where he recollects the glory days of his ancestors as well as days of degradation. Among the latter are the gruesome manner in which his cruel grandfather murdered his mother and brother, and the way that he himself caused the death of his wife.
Seeking refuge on an island in Upstate New York, a married couple's final attempt to salvage their failing relationship takes a turn for the worse when the husband begins to regress emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Valeh, a member of a leftist organization, is arrested by the SAVAK and sentenced to death. In prison, he reconsiders his relationships with members of his political cell, and begins to doubt the validity of the ideas for which he is condemned. At the same time, his comrades pressure him to make a sacrifice for their cause, and his beloved wife experiences personal problems and economic hardships.
A haughty acclaimed newly married fashion designer named Iraj is shown the door by his boss after the boss's son arrives at Iran to take over his father's company. Iraj reluctant to promulgate the loss of his job, starts using his savings, trying to conceal the truth from his naive wife. Having squandered all the money he had on trivial matters, he tells his wife about being axed & that's when the tables turn on him.
A young Saudi doctor campaigns for a seat on the municipal council, finding confidence as she combats prejudice.
Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.
A director of a television series on the history of cinema, who has been grappling with the screenplay of his first feature film, receives an assignment to oversee the installation of a television relay station in a remote region of Zahedan province. He has already hired Turkmen tribespeople for his film and selected his filming location. Meanwhile his wife, who is working on her Ph.D. dissertation about the Mongol invasion of Iran, attempts to dissuade him from accepting the assignment. One night, while working on his history of the cinema series, the director fantasizes a diegetic world that consists of clever juxtapositions of his different worlds: the history of cinema, the history of the mongol invasion, his own film idea and his imminent assignment to the desert.
England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.
In a small valley, riders pursue and kill a man. A horse thief, so his assassins claim. But for his ten year old son Issa, the disappearance of his father causes an avalanche of problems. With the family name stigmatized, Issa is bullied by the other children in the village. While his mother fights to clear her husbands name, Issa is left to his own devices. But unexpectedly, his solitude gives birth to his freedom, his real passion, horses.
Bahram Beyzai's poetic imagining of the circumstances that led to the death of Yazdgerd III, the last of the Sassanid kings of Iran. His death in 651, during the Arab invasions that brought Islam to this Zoroastrian realm, was mysterious: his corpse was discovered in a mill, but the cause of his death—and the whereabouts of his remains—are unknown.
A documentary featuring interviews with teachers and officials on the profession of teaching and what it means to them.
Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.
The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.
As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.
Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.
Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.
A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.
A blind teacher breaks the rules to help a female student rediscover the pleasures of life.
In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran's 1953 CIA-backed coup d'état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.
Andrew Crocker-Harris is an embittered and disliked teacher of Greek and Latin at a British prep school. After nearly 20 years of service, he is being forced to retire for 'health reasons', and perhaps may not even be given a pension. The boys regard him as a Hitler, with some justification. His unfaithful wife Laura tries to hurt him in any way she can. Andrew must come to terms with his failed life and at least regain his own self-esteem.
Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
An American woman, trapped in Islamic Iran by her brutish husband, must find a way to escape with her daughter as well.
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
