Taraneh Alidoosti – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

MOVIE OF THE WEEK September 1, 2023: ORCA

August 27, 2023October 25, 2023 Jennifer Merin betsy bozdech, blue fox entertainment, Elham Asghari, Guinness Book of World Records, iranian films, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren king, Mahtab Keramati, motw, Movie of the Week, nell minow, nikki fowler, Orca, Pam Grady, Sahar Mosayebi, sandie angulo chen, Taraneh Alidoosti

Perseverance is at the heart of Sahar Mosayebi’s moving drama Orca, which is based on the true story of Elham Asghari, the Iranian open-water swimmer who defied the legal and cultural limitations placed on women in Iran by making and breaking world records. In the process, she’s helped bring attention to the challenges faced by Iran’s female athletes, who long for the opportunity to compete in all sports, not just the officially sanctioned ones.

Reviews

ORCA – Review by Pam Grady

August 22, 2023October 25, 2023 Pam Grady blue fox entertainment, Elham Asghari, Guinness Book of World Records, iranian films, Mahtab Keramati, motw, Orca, Sahar Mosayebi, Taraneh Alidoosti

Just like any typical sports movie, Orca is an uplifting story of an athlete striving for excellence. But there is nothing typical about Elham Asghari’s (Taraneh Alidoosti) journey as an endurance swimmer in Iran that is typical. A domestic abuse survivor, she recovers her sense of self in the water. But when she reaches out to Iran’s sports federation for its blessing in a swimming competition, the organization denies her. (This is, after all, a government body that won’t allow women to participate in kickboxing or Muay Thai because it might damage their reproductive organs – say what?)

Festivals Reviews

SUBTRACTION (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

August 14, 2023August 20, 2023 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas iranian films, Mani Haghighi, Melbourne IFF 2023, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Subtraction, Taraneh Alidoosti

Mani Haghighi has steadily established himself as one of Iran’s most consistently intriguing contemporary filmmakers, with films like 2016’s dazzling A Dragon Arrives! revealing a unique gift for blending the fantastic with his more earthly thematic concerns. This fascination continues in the taut doppelganger-centric thriller, Subtraction. Much more than just a novelty, then, the doppelganger premise of the film grants Haghighi space to explore the depths of his thematic interest in identity, gender and violence in contemporary Iran, rendering Subtraction a powerful and intelligent exercise in genre play.