Nowrouz Festival

Abbas has turned his own home to a guest house in a nomadic area of Iran. With the support of his wife and three children, he runs a successful Eco-tourism business. He has an ambitious dream, creating a new tribe by his own and becoming the sovereign. Therefore, he plans seriously to fulfill his dream and searching for a nomadic girl to be the queen of his tribe. Since he is Muslim, he has the right of taking more than one wife at the same time. His current wife and children are against this idea and break up with him.

Mahboba Rawi has dedicated herself to orphans of Afghanistan. She is the mother figure for many. Abdul, one of the orphans, is in love with Fatemeh, the girl next door. They hope to marry. But her father has other plans. He wants her to marry anyone offering a large dowry. Devastated, Abdul hopes Mahboba will help him again. But, Fatemeh’s father demands beyond anyone’s expectation. He wants them to pay $10,000 or find a wife for his son instead. The couple’s fate depends on Mahboba to meet or negotiate his terms.

Breath is about an Iranian family who live in Iran. It tells the story of Bahar, who is living with her father, Ghafour (Mehran Ahmadi) and Grandmother (Pantea Panahiha) during the 70s. Bahar is living in her childish and surreal world, filled with their dreams and fantasies.

Golsa, a 16 year old girl from suburb of Tehran, who is motivated primarily by boredom rather than greed, robs a corner shop with her friends. But while sharing the booty they are distressed to realize that they forgot to take the security camera footage. One of them must return to the crime scene to get it.

On the last Wednesday before the spring solstice ushers in the Persian New Year, people set off fireworks following an ancient Zoroastrian tradition. Rouhi, spending her first day at a new job, finds herself in the midst of a different kind of fireworks — a domestic dispute between her new boss and his wife.

Despite his 50 years Parviz still lives off his father and the two men don’t get on very well. Things come to a head when the father tells his son he has decided to remarry. Parviz has no other choice but surrender his place to his step-mother and leave home. Parviz finds it difficult to get used to this new solitary life far from his neighborhood and the people he knows. He thus concocts a novel way of fighting back against the injustice done to him.

Middle-aged Shokoo finds out that ex-husband, Fereydoun, has been placed in a nursing home by their children. She and her second husband Reza, decide to take care of Fereydoun themselves, but in their own home. In doing so, the relationship between Shokoo and Fereydoun is significantly transformed.

On the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, according to local custom, thirteen-year-old Hendi is married off to sixteen-year-old Hormoz. Despite the fact that the young couple hardly know each other, they fully enjoy the beginning of their married life together. However, events occur which darken their original joy and lead to unexpected outcomes.

Finding Farideh is a feature-length documen­tary about an Iranian girl named Farideh, who had been abandoned in a holy shrine In Iran when she was 6 months old In 1976, and then she got adopted by a Dutch couple and left Iran to the Netherlands to start her new life. Her parents promised to take her to Iran when she turns 18, but it never happened because they always thought that Iran is a dangerous coun­try to go. Now, she overcomes her fears and starts a personal journey to her motherland Iran for the first time to meet three families who claim to be her biological family and to find out about her Iranian identity and culture.

Somewhere in the outskirts of Tehran a small factory illegally employs Afghan asylum seekers, who live with their families in old containers or modest shacks in nearby shanty towns. Saber, a young Iranian worker, secretly meets Marona, daughter of Abdolsalam, an Afghan worker. A love story unfolds, the conclusion of which no-one can foretell.

Some college students travel to a remote region for a camping trip and to participate in a kite-flying event. By the bleak lakeside, there’s a restaurant, where three cooks treating the students very suspiciously. The relation between the students and the cooks gradually becomes weirder as it seems the students are confronting some problems that there is no escape.

A young divorcee living with her son in a small northern city of Iran, wants to marry the man she has fallen in love with. According to the current rules, the father has the custody of children; however, her ex-husband has granted her that right on the condition that she doesn’t remarry. Struggling to keep both of her beloved ones, she has to think about the third option: Temporary Marriage (Sighe). However, this will get her into a predicament, as despite its being legal, Sighe is not well-received by the society at all. Would temporary marriage be a good solution for her?

Aban, a 45-year woman, employs seasonal female workers to pick oranges in the North of Iran. Her business becomes the largest orange garden in the region. Her competitors, all male in the business, start making obstructions to her contract.

A prison is about to be evacuated to make room for an airport expansion project. Major Jahed and his officers are busy transferring all inmates to the new facility, but one inmate is missing.

Danesh works at a small barbershop, but his true calling is to become an actor. Manfered promises to act as his agent and introduce him to a famous director, if Danesh gathers enough long hair to make a wig. At the same time, murders are being committed in the city. Detective Kiani is here to investigate and like he says: it’s a messy situation. Homayoung Ghanizadeh pays tribute to the surrealism of his favourite playwrights in a delightful, bizarre black comedy which won the 37th Fajr Film Festival last year.