The films we represent:

THE ROCK (dir. Hamid Jafari)
Swathed from head to toe in black, a woman is breaking stones out of a rock wall using a crowbar and her bare hands. For several minutes we watch her prying, pushing, bashing, awkwardly wrestling in her flapping robes, until the block she is after finally comes crashing down, right next to the lens of the low camera and her bare feet. Stone by stone, the blocks are loaded onto a truck, and the driver gives her some money – she has earned her wage. In a stone cave dwelling they built themselves, she tends to her elderly husband before returning the next day to the never-ending work. Her daily routine resembles the torment of Sisyphus – a dusty chore she is doomed to repeat forever. The stony, reddish moonlike landscape of southern Iran and the traditional way of life lend an almost biblical atmosphere to this serene, aesthetically filmed visual poem. Like the arid, unending landscape, the woman’s existence seems to lack any dynamism, gradually raising questions about the meaning of life.
Premiered at Visions Du Reel, Winner of Grand Jury Prize, 2016
Played at IDFA, 2016
North American Premiere at Hot Docs, 2017
US Premiere at New Orleans Film Festival, Winner of Best Short Documentary, 2017, Eligible for the Academy Awards
Played at Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, 2017
West Coat Premiere at Irvine International Film Festival, Winner of Best Short Documentary, 2018
Playing at Vermont International Film Festival, 2018 COMING SOON on October 26, 2018
THE BROKER (dir. Azadi Moghadam)
In a traditional Iranian dating agency, the manager, Mrs. Sadri, and her female employees are dead set on finding their clients a husband—regardless of their personal feelings or preferences. Shuffling through files and making agitated phone calls, they constantly remind their mortified customers that it’s the man who gets to choose, and that a woman without a spouse doesn’t have an identity. Even a temporary marriage would be better than remaining unwed, they say. Which doesn’t mean these surprising brokers don’t harshly lecture their male clientele as well, or that their conservative views don’t come with a good dose of humour—especially since two of them are, ironically, single. Shot almost entirely inside a tiny office, Broker conveys a sense of claustrophobia that mirrors many women’s situations, and offers a shocking, tragicomic reminder that the fiercest agents of the patriarchy aren’t always men.
Premiered at Hot Docs, 2018
European Premiere at New Horizon Film Festival, 2018
UK Premiere at BFI London, 2018 COMING SOON on October 12, 2018
DOUBLE (dir. Ronak Jafari)
At the edge of an eerie marsh in the middle of the mysterious mountains, all alone, Pegah finds herself plunging to her death. All we know of her is that she is a young woman wearing a long red raincoat. Her abstract unreal identity is revealed when she coincidentally meets another woman, Matin. The look of the two women in the story challenges the matter of their false and true identities. A kind of inversion.
Premiered at Moscow International Film Festival, 2018
Played at Kinenova International Film Festival, 2018