#setareh maleki

[cinematicjourney]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) | dir. Mohammad Rasoulof

[filmap]

دانه‌ی انجیر معابد / The Seed of the Sacred Fig Mohammad Rasoulof. 2024

Ruins Kharanaq Castle, Kharanaq, Yazd Province, Irán See in map

See in imdb

[mariwatchesmovies]

Les Graines du figuier sauvage | The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) دانه‌ی انجیر معابد dir. Mohammad Rasoulof cine. Pooyan Aghababaei

[moviemosaics]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, 2024

[porquevi]

"A Semente do Fruto Sagrado" (Dâne-ye anjîr-e ma'âbed) - cinema.

Filme iraniano, agora concorrente ao Oscar de filme estrangeiro, mas quando fui ainda não era. A história é que o diretor Mohammad. A trama é contra o regime ditatorial iraniano e acontece no meio dos protestos contra a morte de uma garota por não usar o véu da forma correta em 2022. O diretor foi preso, liberado e terminou o filme na Alemanha.

depois de ver: é um filme forte. e quase todo dentro de salas e quartos, já que foi feito em segredo. a parte final, cheia de correria atrapalha, mas não diminui a mensagem do filme.

[supercalifragipopculturevomit]

Film Recommendation: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) Written and Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof Starring Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi

"Ficus Religiosa is a tree with an unusual life cycle. Its seeds, contained in bird droppings, fall on other trees. Aerial roots spring up and grow down to the floor. Then, the branches wrap around the host tree and strangle it. Finally, the sacred fig stands on its own."

[bob-the-movie-man-film-reviews]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (15): High Drama for a Family Caught on the Wrong Side of a Revolution.

One Mann's Movies Film Review of "The Seed of the Sacred Fig". A tense and brilliantly produced Iranian political thriller. 4.5/5.

A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (2024). Original title: Dâne-ye anjîr-e ma’âbed A caption at the start of the film discloses that this film was made in secret. And you can see why. The Iranian authorities have not reacted well to it, sentencing the director Mohammad Rasoulof to 8 years in prison (he had to flee the country). They also promised retribution on the cast…

[watchingalotofmovies]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

The Seed of the Sacred Fig    [trailer]

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

The paranoia and fear that easily spreads when living under an oppressive regime.

The use of real phone recordings from protests in Iran provides context and shows this is not a mere theoretical piece of fiction.

Director Mohammad Rasoulof has numerously been arrested and sentenced in Iran and now has fled the country. You can say he knows the local justice system well.

[50books50movies]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

The story behind the film’s creation is almost as gripping as the film itself, an amalgamation of horror, domestic drama, political thriller, and subtle as a gun to the temple political allegory about contemporary Iran. One of the best things I’ve seen this year.

[genevieveetguy]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Danaye anjir-e moabad), Mohammad Rasoulof (2024)

[randomrichards]

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG:

Father promoted

Descends to paranoia

When gun goes missing

[autolabrum]

Watched Seed of the Sacred Fig

Shatteringly familiar. The toxic seeds of political violence are spread so far. The oppressive force must be buried in history, through tremendous labor on the part of its victims. Solidarity forever.

[diekulterin]

Die Saat des heiligen Feigenbaums (Iran, 2024)

Schon bei der Viennale hatte ich versucht, Karten für diesen hochgelobten Film zu bekommen. Sie waren nach wenigen Minuten ausverkauft. Viele hatten von den gefährlichen Umständen der Entstehung des Films bereits bei den Filmfestspielen in Cannes erfahren, denn er wurde heimlich und unter gefährlichen Umständen im Iran gedreht. Der Regisseur konnte sich nur durch eine Flucht vor einer…

[jmunneytumbler]

The Political is Personal in the Secretly Shot 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig'

The Political is Personal in the Secretly Shot 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig'

It’s a secret… but you should go see it (CREDIT: NEON) Starring: Misagh Zare, Sohelia Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi, Reza Akhlaghi, Shiva Ordooei, Amineh Arani Director: Mohammad Rasoulof Running Time: 168 Minutes Rating: PG-13 for Bloody Injuries and Disturbing Threats Release Date: November 27, 2024 (Theaters) What’s It About?: The Seed of the Sacred Fig was shot…

[cristalconnors]

ENSEMBLE

Shortlisted: Anora / Vermiglio / Evil Does Not Exist / Between the Temples / All We Imagine as Light

THE NOMINEES ARE:

20,000 SPECIES OF BEES

Casting by: Rakel Munian Arroita, Naiara Carmona, and Maddi Morillas. Starring: Sofía Otero, Patricia Lóprez Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain, Itziar Lazkano, Martxelo Rubio, Miguel Garcés, Unax Hayden, Andere Garabieta Oribe, Julene Puente Nafarrate, Mariñe Ibarretxe Frade, Aintziñe Rey Zurimendi, and Julián Urkiola

HARD TRUTHS

Casting by: Nina Gold. Starring: Marianne Jeane-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown, Jonathan Livingstone, Jo Martin, Llewella Gideon, Diana Yekinni, Alice Bailey Johnson, Gary Beadle, Diveen Henry, Bryony Miller, Samatha Spiro, Syrus Lowe, and Naana Agyei Ampadu

JANET PLANET

Casting by: Jessica Kelly. Starring: Zoe Ziegler, Julianne Nicholson, Will Patton, Edie Moon Kearns, Mary Shultz, Sophie Okonedo, Elias Koteas

LA CHIMERA

Casting by: Chiara Polizzi and Fiona Weir. Starring: Josh O'Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzio Nemolato, Isabella Rossellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Lou Roy-Lecollinet, Giuliano Mantovani, Gian Piero Capretto, Melchiorre Pala, Ramona Fiorini, Luca Gargiullo, Yile Yara Vianello, Barbara Chiea, Elisabette Perotto, Chiara Pazzaglia, Francesca Carrain, Valentino Santagati, Piero Crucitti, Luciano Vergaro, Carlo Tarmati, Milutin Dapcevic, Luka Chikovani, Julia Vella, Agnese Graziani, Alessandro Genovesi, Cristiano Piazzati, Sofia Stangherlin, Marianna Pantani, and Maria Alexandra Lungu

AND THE CRISTAL GOES TO...

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG

Casting by: Mohammad Rasoulof. Starring: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Setareh Maleki, Mahsa Rostami, Niousha Akhsji, Reza Akhlaghirad, and Shiva Ordooie

[warningsine]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/movies/the-seed-of-the-sacred-fig-review.html

The ubiquity of smartphones capable of filming anything, anywhere, has been a blessing and a curse to autocratic governments. On the one hand, protests and nascent revolutions can be filmed and broadcast, seen around the world, making the authoritarian’s attempt to quash dissent much more onerous.

But there’s a shadow side. Autocrats can compel obedience by means of overt force, but it’s much more canny — and more insidious — to turn everyone into individual agents of surveillance. Thinking your office might be wiretapped is bad enough, but knowing whatever you do might be filmed by your snitch neighbor, or sibling, is a powerful motivator to fall into line even in the private sphere. And those phones? They’re perfect little monitoring machines.

This possibility is a basic fact of 21st-century life, and Mohammad Rasoulof makes powerful use of it in his drama “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” Titles before the film begins announce that it was made in secret, because “when there is no way, a way must be made.” In the past, Rasoulof’s films have resulted in travel bans and prison sentences in his native country of Iran, where he’s run afoul of strict censorship laws. When “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” was announced as a selection at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Iranian government interrogated the cast and crew, subjecting them to travel bans. On May 8, less than a week before the start of the festival, Rasoulof was sentenced to flogging and eight years in prison. He and several of the film’s crew fled their country for Europe, and he remains in exile.

It’s not hard to see why the film seemed so dangerous. It puts a frame around inconvenient truths. The main drama concerns a family of four: Iman (Missagh Zareh), his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and their two daughters, 21-year-old Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and her teenage sister, Sana (Setareh Maleki). Iman has recently been made an investigating judge in Tehran’s revolutionary court, a position of prestige, and Najmeh is overjoyed. Iman aspires to do his job justly.

But almost as soon as he arrives, he discovers that among his duties is a morally dubious one: rubber-stamping severe sentences as requested by the regime’s prosecutors, instead of doing the work of investigating them first. He’s also given a gun to protect himself and his family. Torn at first, he tells his wife about what he’s been asked to do. He and Najmeh reason that the country’s laws are God’s laws, and that it is not his moral responsibility to cross the prosecutors’ recommendations. Besides, what they wish for most is safety, stability and prosperity for their family. That is what the state provides.

Their daughters take a different view. They’re observing protests against the government through many windows — the ones in their bedroom, but also the ones into the world their phones provide. Often what they see on state TV conflicts sharply with the evidence of their own eyes. After Rezvan’s friend Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi) is shot in the face during a protest against compulsory hijab wearing, Iman tells his daughters they’re believing lies planted by the enemy. And then, his gun goes missing.

This story unfolds slowly and methodically, mostly contained in the family’s apartment — no wonder, given the film was shot in secret. But the small-scale family drama feels like a model of the full country in miniature. As the members of the family become more suspicious, they turn on one another. Home begins to feel like a prison of its own.

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” — the title refers to a tree in which the young shoots choke out the older trunk — is a slow burn, sometimes a tad too slow. Occasionally languid, close-cropped shots that seem intended to produce visual poetry go on a bit too long.

But those sequences are a minor distraction, and the rest of the film’s methodical pace, its deliberate unfolding of the family’s growing rifts, feels almost classical, as if we’re watching an old legend fitted to a new age. Each of the main cast ably portrays internal conflict, both in the things they say and the things they don’t.

There’s a clear divide between the public and private realms in their world (each woman wears a hijab outside the house, a visual separation). The film dwells occasionally on the simple moments of home life: cooking dinner, sitting together in the living room, listening to music. So as the family’s phones become key players in the story, it’s clear what kind of intrusion they represent — the outside world entering the contained indoor one, and the possibility of the opposite occurring.

Rasoulof brilliantly takes this a step further. As his characters wrestle increasingly with the turmoil outside their doors, and the implications this might have for the order within, the film cuts away from this drama and takes us to another drama. Suddenly, what we’re seeing is real: vertically shot documentary footage of protests on the streets, presumably captured by citizens. Those protests followed the death of a woman named Mahsa Amini while she was in police custody in Tehran in September 2022. The footage involves authorities cracking down on protesters, brutal beatings and worse.

It’s an extraordinarily brave addition on Rasoulof’s part, and an effective way to break the film’s fourth wall. That’s footage you, too, could have seen on your phone. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” asks us to enter a family’s story, but also to acknowledge that we are part of it. We’re extras in the background, no matter how far away we are. For Rasoulof, the world he’s created is far from theoretical. The consequences have been, too.