The Last Word

The Journey of a young man who is making a documentary about forgotten narratives around an old piano, takes him through an unknown path towards restoring history, culture and identity of his homeland, Iran, in dusty and abandoned objects.

THE BRIGHT DAY weaves a story that has its roots in the complexity of Iran’s draconian laws governing capital punishment. A kindergarten teacher hopes to aid the father of one of her young students, a man accused of manslaughter, by convincing each of seven reluctant witnesses to come forward. No one lacks a hidden agenda in this drama in which shades of truth collide with self-interest and the specter of payback. (Gene Siskel Film Center)

In 1980, a teenage boy escapes the unrest in Iran only to face more hostility in America, due to the hostage crisis. Determined to fit in, he joins the school's floundering wrestling team.

In a small valley, riders pursue and kill a man. A horse thief, so his assassins claim. But for his ten year old son Issa, the disappearance of his father causes an avalanche of problems. With the family name stigmatized, Issa is bullied by the other children in the village. While his mother fights to clear her husbands name, Issa is left to his own devices. But unexpectedly, his solitude gives birth to his freedom, his real passion, horses.

A series of short films in which the history of the Thai border town of Nabua is re-imagined as an elusive science fiction ghost story rooted in Thai folklore.

A young woman's wedding becomes a ritual of mourning when her sister and family die in an auto accident on the way to the wedding. The sisters' mother refuses to accept her daughter's death, and in the midst of wedding guests and mourners, including the drivers of the truck that caused the accident, she orders the wedding to take place. But how can the daughter marry in the midst of a wake and without the family's traditional mirror, which the sister was bringing to the service?

Saad, a young Moroccan illegal immigrant, is planning a perilous journey to Canada with Reza, his Iranian lover. In Montreal, Saad is called upon to save his beloved from certain deportation to Iran, where inevitable punishment awaits.

A director of a television series on the history of cinema, who has been grappling with the screenplay of his first feature film, receives an assignment to oversee the installation of a television relay station in a remote region of Zahedan province. He has already hired Turkmen tribespeople for his film and selected his filming location. Meanwhile his wife, who is working on her Ph.D. dissertation about the Mongol invasion of Iran, attempts to dissuade him from accepting the assignment. One night, while working on his history of the cinema series, the director fantasizes a diegetic world that consists of clever juxtapositions of his different worlds: the history of cinema, the history of the mongol invasion, his own film idea and his imminent assignment to the desert.

A transparent look into the life of Iranian immigrants in America. Sholeh and her husband Nasser carry out their evening routine in a ritual they are both accustomed to but nonetheless deeply grateful for.

Four friends spend a final summer together tangled in a web of sexual obsession, alienation and magic.

Valeh, a member of a leftist organization, is arrested by the SAVAK and sentenced to death. In prison, he reconsiders his relationships with members of his political cell, and begins to doubt the validity of the ideas for which he is condemned. At the same time, his comrades pressure him to make a sacrifice for their cause, and his beloved wife experiences personal problems and economic hardships.

When Mahi's son dies in a car accident, Behrouz who has returned to Iran to sell his properties, attends the funeral. Their old romance catches up while Behrouz has planned to marry Sara and go back to Canada with her.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.

Bahram Beyzai's poetic imagining of the circumstances that led to the death of Yazdgerd III, the last of the Sassanid kings of Iran. His death in 651, during the Arab invasions that brought Islam to this Zoroastrian realm, was mysterious: his corpse was discovered in a mill, but the cause of his death—and the whereabouts of his remains—are unknown.