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In 6 in the Morning, Sara, a philosophy student, plans to leave Iran for Toronto, but a last-minute farewell party disrupts her plans. A casual gathering quickly intensifies when police arrive due to noise complaints, transforming a simple goodbye into a tense encounter.

Sara hides to avoid arrest, and the party’s small moments become a stark confrontation with state control, revealing the oppressive nature of Iranian society.

The transition from a relaxed event to a frantic scene feels abrupt yet meaningful, exposing the regime’s pervasive grip. Modiri crafts tension through strategic cuts to black, creating a sense of finality and confinement. These visual breaks intensify the film’s mood, mirroring Sara’s sense of being trapped not only in the current moment but in the broader social context she seeks to escape.

Modiri’s method builds tension gradually, elevating the stakes through moments of quiet—suggesting that the most significant threats often remain unseen,...

In his second theatrical film, multi-hyphenate Mehran Modiri, one of Iran’s most beloved TV satirists, turns his hand to the thriller genre with mixed results. He writes, directs and performs in the intense but increasingly contrived social issues movie “6 A.M.,” in which a small incident escalates into a big tragedy. Although the indie feature mostly looks and plays like a middling TV drama, it still paints a surprisingly critical picture of the country by showing how suddenly and completely the state can interfere with the behind-closed-doors lives of ordinary citizens.

Philosophy student Sara (Samira Hassanpour) is nervously preparing to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Toronto, where she will live for the next three years while she pursues her doctorate. As she eats what she jokingly refers to as the “Last Supper” with her university professor parents and brother Siavash (Mehrdad Sedighian), she’s interrupted by a call...

Nearly three decades have passed since Fatlip exited the Pharcyde, one of the cleverest, funniest hip-hop groups to emerge in the early Nineties. Since then, he has put out a solo album, The Loneliest Punk, scored an underground hit with “What’s Up, Fatlip?” and even buried the hatchet with some of his former fellow Pharcyde emcees. Fatlip and original Pharcyde members Slimkid3 and Imani have been touring as the Far Side, though the original quartet, which includes Bootie Brown who owns the Pharcyde trademark, hasn’t gathered together since...