Directing
Once upon a time in this dairy farm we had 400 cows and 100 calves. What are you doing with them? Now we have 40 cows and 10 calves. You even don't have mercy for the calves.
A strange and silent village, lifeless and seemingly bereft of all apparent life. There, a determinedly mannered middle-aged carriage driver drags a lifeless body towards the cemetery.
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?
Three women gather one afternoon to discuss their personal problems.
A remote brick manufacture factory produces bricks in an ancient way. Many families with different ethnicities work in the factory and the boss seems to hold the key to solving their problems. Forty-year-old Lotfollah, who has been born on-site, is the factory supervisor and acts as go-between for the workers and the boss. Boss has Lotfollah gather all the workers in front of his office. He wants to talk to them about the shutdown of the factory. All matters now to Lotfollah is to keep Sarvar unharmed, the woman he has been in love with for a long time.
Sarah is leaving Teheran for three years to study for her doctorate in Canada. Her flight is at 6 am. After an emotionally fraught final dinner with her family, she heads to an impromptu farewell party at her friend Farida’s apartment, intending to go straight to the airport afterwards. That plan implodes, however, when the morality police swoop in. Drinks are emptied, musical instruments hidden and women put on their overcoats, while Sarah is seized with terror that they will all be arrested – and she, of course, will miss her plane. Mehran Modiri, Iran’s popular satirist, who also has a chilling cameo as a police hostage negotiator, proves here that he is just as at home with a nail-biting drama.
A few teen and youthful protesters in Iran, after being arrested by the governing regime, are offered forced labor in lieu of imprisonment. They go on a terrifying mission in the dark of night.
Baha, a young man from a border town, learns that his father, Bahram, has been released from prison after twenty years. Bahram killed his wife -- Baha's mother -- having accused her of cheating on him. Baha, who has never coped with this and is still full of anger and resentment decides to take to the road to bring his father back from prison himself.
A young boy named Panah lives in a small village in the heart of the desert, helping his family and the villagers. He is hesitant between leaving and staying…
Bemani has spent ten years in jail for killing her husband. Her child was taken away in prison and allegedly given to her husband’s family. Temporarily released, she immediately starts looking for her son. Bemani goes to the car demolition workshop where Ebi, her brother-in-law, works, but he claims not to know anything about the boy’s fate. She finds out, however, that it was Ebi who sold the child to a rich family. Bemani tries to extract more information from the workers of the demolition shop, but they demand an indecent favour in return for the information. As a desperate mother, she is prepared to go to the extremes, but not in the way the men are hoping for.
