Canadian Premiere
Several years after fleeing Iran and resettling in France, filmmaker Mahsa Karampour travels to the USA to reconnect with her younger brother, Siavash — a gregarious indie rock musician who’s encountered fleeting success and considerable tragedy in New York City. As the two wander the metropolis’s streets, then hit America’s highways, memories of their life in Tehran begin to resurface, leading Siavash to find solace in various guises and personas.
Adopting the structure and soulfulness of a classic road movie — combined with the brashness of one of Siavash’s punk anthems — Karampour’s disarmingly intimate documentary investigates the complexity of familial bonds. She reveals the toll of living between worlds, while reminding us that filmmaking can sometimes serve as a form of healing. Guided by curiosity and handled with tremendous care, Into the Jaws of the Ogre is an enthralling example of humanist filmmaking.
Siavash Karampour
France
2026
In Persian and English with English subtitles
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Credits & Director
Producer
Mathilde Raczymow
Cinematography
Cédric Dupire, Mahsa Karampour
Editor
Saskia Berthod
Mahsa Karampour
Born in Iran, Mahsa Karampour has lived in France since 2003. Alongside her sociology studies at EHESS (Paris), she pursued a cinema program at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University. A graduate in filmmaking from the École documentaire de Lussas, she leads film workshops, works as a camera and sound operator, and contributes to festival programming. In 2024, she performed as an actress in a stage adaptation of Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten directed by Guilda Chahverdi. Into the Jaws of the Ogre (2026) is her first feature film.
Photo by Marie Guichzoua
Spectrum
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Having fled Iran for France, filmmaker Mahsa Karampour now reunites with her musician brother in America. Mixing the structure of a road movie with the brashness of a punk anthem, this intimate documentary is humanist filmmaking of the highest order.
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