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Thanks to the breakout success of his Oscar-winning drama A Separation back in 2011, Asghar Farhadi’s earlier films have received newfound recognition thanks to new restorations in the subsequent years. Following his Cannes prize winner A Hero, the latest to get restored is his 2003 drama Dancing in the Dust. Arriving this Friday in a director-approved 2K digital restoration courtesy of Film Movement Classics in what will be the film’s first-ever North American release, we’re pleased to premiere the exclusive new trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Shortly following their impulsive wedding, the naive, young Nazar is pressured by his family into divorcing his new wife, Reyhane, after rumors circulate of her mother’s possible sex-work. Still deeply in love, he insists on paying back Reyhane’s marriage dowry despite his insolvency. Nazar is soon on the run from creditors and finds himself hiding out in the desert where he...

Baran Kosari with Behzad Dorani, left, and Babak Karimi in The Wastetown. Ahmad Bahrami: 'The personal reason that I've worked on these types of topics is that I want to show this brutal situation so that others see what is happening and how to avoid it in the future' Photo: Courtesy of Poff Iranian director Ahmad Bahrami’s continues bleak consideration of his homeland with The Wastetown[film] - the second part of an intended trilogy after his Venice Horizons-winning [film]The Wasteland. Set against the backdrop of a car breakers yard, it sees Bemani (Baran Kosari), who has been temporarily released from jail after 10 years, attempting to find out the whereabouts of the son she was forced to give up in prison.

The film co-stars Ali Bagheri as Bemani’s brother-in-law, who previously also starred in The Wasteland, Babak Karimi and Behzad Dorani. A tense drama that, like many of the films of Bela Tarr,...

Ahmad Bahrami’s follow-up to his Venice Horizon’s winning The Wasteland, marks the second of an intended trilogy (to be completed by a film title Waste Man), and it’s every bit as oppressive and handsomely shot in monochrome as the first. Also, despite its bleak subject matter, it has been distributed in Iran, although the censor made cuts to some of the implied violence.

There’s shades of Shakespeare’s blasted heath as we see Bemani (Baran Kowsari) pick her way towards a car breakers yard as the wind whistles through the wires that enclose it. The notion of death hangs heavily over the yard, which is full of the stacked carcasses of dead cars that creak and squeak as they shift in the wind. Each is waiting to be systematically crushed by the sort of hulking and groaning machine that wouldn’t be out of place in...

If there is something we could call a trend judging from the selection of Asian films at PÖFF, it is stories about strong women told by men who are listening to female’s voices and observe what is going on around them. In the light of current events in Iran, Ahmad Bahrami’s monochrome drama “The Wastetown” is devastatingly mind-boggling. The script draws directly from the wellspring of everyday life in Iran, focusing on one woman’s fight for personal justice. With dialogues crafted with straightforward simplicity of conversation that happen off screen, but pregnant with meaning, Bahrami returns to a solitary hero with an impossible mission. Entirely shot on a scrapeyard battered by the wind and surrounded by snowy mountains, the film profits from the claustophobic setting that makes its protagonists feel the full weight of psychological entrapment.

The only time we see someone outside this gated graveyard is...

Ahmad Bahrami’s sinister drama “The Wastetown” about one woman’s quest to find her child, brought him deservingly the Best Director Award at this year’s edition of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. In this second part of his trilogy whose every chapter is dedicated to one individual fighting to end their plights, Bahrami leans on one part of his first tale told in “The Wasteland”, his tripple Venice winner in 2020 where it bagged Best Film in the Horizons Competition, the Fipresci- and Lavoro Ambiente Award, before it went to conquer other international festivals and win some more. It is a clever, small thing that bridges both films without making them dependent on each other. This is why one of the key characters from “The Wasteland” resurrects in “The Wastetown”, not quite as the same person, but equally troubled and outcasted. More details about it are in the interview that follows…...

Protests have been ongoing since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody in September.

Iranian actors Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi have been arrested after expressing solidarity with the protest movement and removing their headscarves in public, as reported by state media on Sunday (November 20).

Ghaziani and Riahi were detained after prosecutors probed their social media posts, according to state-run Irna news agency.

Ghaziani, star of 2008’s As Simple As That and and 2012’s Days Of Life, has been a vocal critic on the crackdown on protestors, and was arrested for inciting and supporting the “riots” and for communication with opposition media,...

Iran has arrested two prominent actresses who removed their headscarves in public to show support for the ongoing protest movement calling for freedom for women, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody last September.

According to multiple reports citing state media, Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi were detained after being summoned by prosecutors and are accused of collusion and acting against Iran’s authorities.

Ghaziani, an award-winner for 2008’s As Simple as That and 2012’s Days of Life, has been a vocal critic of the crackdown on protesters. She wrote in an Instagram message this weekend, “Maybe this will be my last post. From this moment on, whatever happens to me, know that as always, I am with Iranian people until my last breath.”

The accompanying video shows Ghaziani turning her back on camera and wrapping her uncovered hair into a ponytail, a gesture which has come...

Exclusive: Film Movement Classics has acquired North American rights to 2K digital restorations of Asghar Farhadi’s first two features Dancing in the Dust and Beautiful City, which have been signed off on by the two-time Oscar winner himself. Both restored dramas will be released theatrically this year, with a release on all heading home entertainment and digital platforms to follow.

In Farhadi’s 2003 feature directorial debut Dancing in the Dust, Nazar (Yousef Khodaparast) is pressured into divorcing his wife (Baran Kosari) because of her family’s bad reputation. This leads to money problems, and before long, he’s on the run due to debts that he can’t pay. Hiding out in the desert, he meets an eccentric elderly man (Faramarz Gharibian) who makes a living by collecting venom from poisonous snakes. Nazar becomes his unlikely partner and gets an unexpected chance at redemption. The film won Best Director,...

While we are mostly quite confident in our moral strength and community, it often only takes intense pressure or a temptation from the outside to veer us from this path, influence us and turn us against one another. In his home country Iran, the duration of the economic and political sanctions, meant as a way to punish the regime for his unwillingness to comply to international policies, have become a burden for its society, according to director Abbas Amini. The image of the slaughterhouse with its hooks, its cold aesthetics and its inherent violence is a fitting metaphor for a time in which people feel an intense economic pressure and have to face unthinkable decisions, making the temptations of the “evil butcher” or rather those who have remained affluent, an attractive option for many. In his new feature “The Slaughterhouse”, a blend of social drama and thriller, Amini seeks to...

The husband of a woman due to play a match abroad refuses her permission to travel in a fictionalised version of a true story

Permission is a handmaid’s tale taken straight from the headlines. In 2015, Niloufar Ardalan was captain of the Iranian women’s indoor football team, which had just reached the Asian Championships final in Malaysia. Incredibly, she was prevented from playing, because her TV presenter husband would not give her the permission to travel abroad that married women in Iran legally need.

A fictionalised version of this extraordinary situation, Permission is the debut feature from Iranian dramatist and film-maker Soheil Beiraghi. Baran Kosari plays Afrooz, the player who is turned back at the airport and who then realises that her sporting celebrity and Instagram following count for nothing. Her cowed teammates won’t support her; her husband Yasser (Amir Jadidi) is a preening TV star who presides...

In the heatedly performed drama Cold Sweat (Araghe Sard), a professional female soccer player finds herself stranded at home as her team takes off to Malaysia for the Asia Cup finals. The reason she’s left behind is due to a simple and completely lopsided facet of Iranian civil law: A woman needs permission from her husband in order to leave the country. If he says no, she’s stuck.

And so, in writer-director Soheil Beiraghi’s quietly gripping second feature, Afrooz (Baran Kosari), the captain of Iran’s national futsal squad — futsal is a form of indoor soccer that’...

In the heatedly performed drama Cold Sweat (Araghe Sard), a professional female soccer player finds herself stranded at home as her team takes off to Malaysia for the Asia Cup finals. The reason she’s left behind is due to a simple and completely lopsided facet of Iranian civil law: A woman needs permission from her husband in order to leave the country. If he says no, she’s stuck.

And so, in writer-director Soheil Beiraghi’s quietly gripping second feature, Afrooz (Baran Kosari), the captain of Iran’s national futsal squad — futsal is a form of indoor soccer that’...

A total of 24 world premieres are included in the Berlinale’s Panorama selection, which has added a number of Asian productions.

Some 36 films from 29 countries will feature in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16), of which 24 will be world premieres.

Most recently invited are works from Norway, Ethiopia, Mexico, India, Iran, Georgia, Greece, Hungary and Austria – with returning filmmakers Elfi Mikesch and Umut Dağ, who opened Panorama 2012 with Kuma, his directorial debut.

New titles include a number of Asian productions. In Ieji (Homeland) by Japan’s Nao Kubota, a farmer’s son, who first fled to the city, explores his home village in the Fukushima district, an area that is actually still a no-go zone following the disaster at the region’s nuclear power plant.

In the South Korean film Night Flight, LeeSong Hee-il presents a duel between two schoolmates. LeeSong previously showed the films No Regret and White Night in Panorama...

The Los Angeles Film Festival has announced the world premiere of Richard Linklater's Bernie as the opening night film for the 2011 festival.

The film will kick off the festival on June 16 at Regal Cinemas Stadium 14 at L.A. Live. It is written by Skip Hollandsworth and director Linklater and stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey.

The film follows a beloved mortician (Black) from a small Texas town, even winning over the town's richest, meanest widow (MacLaine). Even after Bernie commits a horrible crime, people still will not utter a bad word against him.

"We're thrilled to be opening the Festival with the world premiere of this delicious black comedy - a treat from one of the most original and exciting voices in independent film, Richard Linklater," said Festival director Rebecca Yeldham. "With its fabulous all-star cast, Bernie is a perfect stage setter for the incredible line-up of...