Canadian Premiere
In 1998, two schoolgirls sent a letter to Iran’s first-ever women’s newspaper. While they waited to be published, they considered making an impossible film. Using citations and image intervention, Razeh-del journeys through parallel histories of war on images of women. Tafakory’s previous film (Mast-del, MODES ’23) was named among the top ten short films of the year by Film Comment magazine.
Community Partner
Iran/UK/Italy
2024
In Farsi with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Leonardo Bigazzi
Screenwriter
Maryam Tafakory
Editor
Maryam Tafakory
Maryam Tafakory
Maryam Tafakory [b. Iran] works with film and performance. Screenings of her work include MoMA, Cannes, Locarno, amongst others. Awards include Best Experimental Short at 70th and 71st MIFF, Gold Hugo Award at 58th Chicago Int’l Festival, and Tiger Short Award at 51st IFFR.
Photo by The Flaherty, Abby Lord
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Blue Star
In crisis, a popular singer quits Spain to backpack in Argentina. There he comes under the spell of a veteran musician, who teaches him the art of chacareras, zambas and vidalas. It's a journey of musical kinship and spiritual reawakening.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Afternoons of Solitude
Pacification director Albert Serra turns his unflinching gaze on the subject of bullfighting, and in particular the famous young matador Andrés Roca Rey. The film challenges us to look its subject square in the eye and draw our own conclusions.
The Executioner
Regularly cited as the greatest Spanish film ever made, Berlanga's masterpiece is a pitch black comedy about an undertaker lined up by the state executioner to marry his beautiful daughter -- but he'll also have to inherit the old man's job.
