Farhad Kheradmand

Abbas Kiarostami takes metanarrative gamesmanship to masterful new heights in the final installment of THE KOKER TRILOGY. Unfolding “behind the scenes” of AND LIFE GOES ON, this film traces the complications that arise when the romantic misfortune of one of the actors—a young man who pines for the woman cast as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to do with him—creates turmoil on set and leaves the hapless director caught in the middle. An ineffably lovely, gentle human comedy steeped in the folkways of Iranian village life, THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES peels away layer after layer of artifice as it investigates the elusive, alchemical relationship between cinema and reality.

Fascinated by Iran’s film culture and the works of the feminist poet Forough Farrokhzad, Indian filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh sets out in search of the protagonists of Iranian cinema. The numerous interviews she conducts over a period of six years with filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani, human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh, and others, show the precarious situation in which critics of the regime—under constant threat of imprisonment—find themselves. With a keen eye, she documents the effect of the Islamic Republic’s omnipresent censorship on the daily lives of Iranian women whose uncompromising struggle has put them at the forefront of the recent protests that have rocked the country. AND, TOWARDS HAPPY ALLEYS is both a passionate declaration of love for the cinema and poetry of Iran and a frank portrait of daily life that bears witness to a fearless generation raising its voice to demand its civil liberties.