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Note: Advance tickets are sold out. A limited number of tickets will be available at the box office beginning one hour before showtime.
West Coast Premiere!
Blockage (Iran, 2017)
Sad-e mabar
A Tehran city official charged with policing illegal street vendors, Ghasem (Hamed Behdad) shakes them down for bribes instead. Fearing he’ll soon be fired for corruption, Ghasem desperately scrambles to set up another scam using his wife’s inheritance. One bad decision leads to another with the personal stakes getting higher each time in director Mohsen Gharaie’s taut, sharply drawn feature debut.
DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 82 min. Producer: Bahman Kamyar. Director: Mohsen Gharaie. Screenwriter: Saeed Roostaie. Cinematographer: Morteza Hodaei. Editor: Sepideh Abdolvahab. Production Design: Hojjat Ashtari. Music: Reza Mortazavi. Cast: Hamed Behdad, Baran Kosari, Mohsen Kiaie, Nader Fallah, Giti Ghasemi.
U.S. Premiere!
Valderama (Iran, 2016)
Valderama, a name the 15-year-old soccer fan borrowed from his idol, Colombian soccer star, Carlos Valderrama, is without any immediate family or an official ID card. After an incident at the job where he works illegally, Valderama skips town to Tehran where he falls into an underground economy of illegal street vendors, squatters and drug dealers. Director Abbas Amini plunges us into this fraught world and the plight of other kids like Valderama without ever resorting to easy sympathy or answers.
DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 91 min. Producer: Majid Barzegar. Directed by Abbas Amini. Screenplay: Abbas Amini, Hossein Farokhzadeh. Cinematography: Ashkan Ashkani. Editor: Majid Barzegar, Hamidreza Barzegar. Music: Mehran Ghaedipour. Cast: Hamed Alipour, Nafiseh Zare, Gity Ghasemi, Assadolah Monjazi.
