Zar Amir Ebrahimi

Reading Lolita in Tehran

As Islamic morality squads stage arbitrary raids in Tehran and as fundamentalists seize hold of the universities, Azar Nafisi, an inspired teacher, secretly gathers six of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. Unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, they soon removed their veils, their stories intertwining with the novels they read: just like the heroines of Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James or Jane Austen, the women in Nafisi’s living room dare to dream, hope and love as we experience the complexity of the lives of individuals facing political, moral and personal siege.

Two People Exchanging Saliva

In a farcical world where kissing is punishable by death, a personal shopper threatens the status quo.

Holy Spider

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

Adopt a Daddy

Damien is a pawn in a primary school, and leads a quiet life. To rescue one of his young students, Bahzad, and his mother from imminent expulsion from the land, Damien reconnects with his parents' militant past and convinces his sister Mélanie, who has become a formidable business lawyer, her best friend Rudy and a bunch of unlikely pals to accompany him in his new fight. Together, they will break the law by solidarity. And very quickly to be completely exceeded.

Tatami

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

Honor of Persia

The film follows Zar Amir Ebrahimi's last year in Iran, when she was forced to flee the country fearing for her life after a leaked sex tape with her then-partner in 2006 destroyed her career, sentenced her to prison and 99 lashes when she was only 26.

The Vanishing

Reda seemingly has a life of privilege in Algiers, in his late twenties still living at the family home, with a father who has arranged a job and a fiancée. Reda is eager to please, yet the more he tries the more he veers off course.

My Worst Enemy

Mojtaba, Hamzeh, Zar are among other individuals who have been thrown into prison and ideologically interrogated in Iran. In this documentary, the director wants them to interrogate him as agents of the Islamic Republic might. He would like the real torturer in Iran to see himself through the film as if in a mirror. The violent experience of putting themselves in the torturer's head confronts them with their own limits and the ambivalence of the project itself.

Please Rise

A short political drama about a committee that is formed to choose a new national anthem after a fictional country goes through a revolution.

Shayda

Shayda, a young Iranian woman living in Australia, finds refuge in a women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter, Mona. Having fled her husband, Hossein, and filed for divorce, Shayda struggles to maintain normalcy for Mona. Buoyed by the approach of Nowruz, she tries to forge a fresh start with new and unfettered freedoms. But when a judge grants Hossein visitation rights, he reenters their life, stoking Shayda’s fear that he’ll attempt to take Mona back to Iran.

Inside the Iranian Uprising

In September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody. She had been arrested by Iran’s religious police, accused of not wearing her hijab properly. The authorities said she had died of a heart attack, but rumors spread that she had been beaten on arrest. Citizens took to the streets in their thousands in fury. This is an extraordinary and shocking insight into what has been happening across Iran, revealing a regime under huge pressure and resorting to extreme cruelty to control its citizens.

Seven Winters in Tehran

After seven years in prison, a female student in Tehran is hanged for murder. She had acted in self-defence against a rapist. For a pardon, she would have had to retract her testimony. This moving film reopens the case.

White Paradise

Samuel, a widower, is taking care of his 7-year-old daughter alone. Overwhelmed and stressed out, he decides to isolate in a chalet he was renovating with his wife in the Italian Alps. Indifferent to the anger of locals who help police to hunt down migrants, he comes across a woman who fled Afghanistan. Samuel decides to help her reach the border, thinking it will take them a few hours. But an agressive group of men comes after them…

The Great Leap

A fantasy, road- movie regarding Man and Maryam that embark on an adventure road trip to find their missing along with three others remnant from the circus group.

Tomorrow We Are Free

Iran 1979. The Islamic Revolution is shaking up the country. Dissident Omid, who lived for several years in the German Democratic Republic with his wife, chemical engineer Beate and their mutual daughter, hears the call from his homeland and returns to Teheran with high hopes and best intentions, bringing along his family.

Tehran Taboo

The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

Satisfaction

Set against the backdrop of the Greek isles, the film follows Lola who takes revenge against her sexual partner Philip. Things begin to unravel when they encounter the enigmatic Elena, who intoxicates Lola with her uninhibited way of being and emboldens her to face the roots of her pain.

Tide

One night. On the deserted ski slopes, the nocturnal outing of the snow-grooming machines is being prepared. Twenty-five-year-old Antoine meets up with his team. Right in the middle of the world the hypnotic ballet of the machines, which tirelessly shape the landscape, begins. The mountain rumbles suddenly. Immobilized in the night, Antoine begins a journey in the interval where the myths of a mountain, both feared and venerated, are embodied.

Bride Price vs. Democracy

Omid and Vida grew up as friends in Iran. Now Omid lives in Sweden since many years while Vida still is in Iran. They decide to get married and live together in Sweden, but they're not well prepared for the culture clash.

Beach Flags

Vida is a young Iranian lifeguard swimmer. Popular in her team, she is determined to fight in order to be the one to participate in an international competition in Australia. However, when Sareh, as fast and talented as her joins the team, she will have to face an unexpected situation.