Flora Shabavis – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

WEEK IN WOMEN: Marva Nabili’s THE SEALED SOIL gets 4K restoration – Brandy McDonnell reports

May 29, 2025May 30, 2025 Brandy McDonnell Flora Shabavis, Iranian director, iranian films, Marva Nabili, The Sealed Soil, the week in women, twiw

A new 4K restoration of Iranian director Marva Nabili’s landmark 1977 debut feature The Sealed Soil (Khake Sar Beh Mohr) is opening May 30 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York ahead of a national theatrical rollout later this year. The Sealed Soil is regarded as the earliest surviving feature film directed by an Iranian woman. The film centers on Roo-Bekheir (Flora Shabavis), a young woman living in a poor village in pre-revolutionary Iran. As the daily routine of her family and the entire village is disrupted by a state-ordered relocation, Roo-Bekheir refuses to agree to a forced marriage, a rejection her family interprets as demonic possession.