Fish & Cat

Mahi va gorbeh

“It's a tour de force — the cinematographer is Mahmoud Kalari, who shot “A Separation” — and as quietly political as it is brazenly cinematic.” — Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Selected for New Directors/New Films in 2014, Fish & Cat heralds the emergence of a fresh and original new voice in Iranian cinema.  Shot entirely in a single bravura camera take, writer-director Shahram Mokri’s second feature plays mind-bending games with time and place while a pair of potential serial killer cannibals stalk a group of camping students at a lake.  Thoroughly creepy, but never (really) gory, Fish & Cat reveals an absurdist, apocalyptic edge in the end that suggests more the influence of Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, than American horror films.

Kanoon Iran Novin.  Producer: Sepehr Seifi.  Director: Shahram Mokri.  Screenwriter: Shahram Mokri.  Cinematography: Mahmoud Kalari.  Cast: Babak Karimi, Saeed Ebrahimifar, Siavash Cheraghipoor, Mohammad Berahmani, Faraz Modiri.  DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 134 min.