First-time director Mania Akbari explores the heartbreak and joy of romantic relationships through the stories of seven couples searching for happiness. Comprising seven...LEARN MORE

In his multiple award-winning debut feature, director Ahmet Ulucay portrays the innocence of childhood and the lure of the cinema for two teens in a small Turkish village. By day...LEARN MORE.

This romantic drama made headlines in Iran when its director was kidnapped by arch-conservatives and left to die in the desert. (He was later rescued.) The story follows Daniel, who is in...LEARN MORE.

Hamid Nematollah's compelling drama "stakes out a new path for Iranian cinema" (Variety) as it exposes key problems plaguing modern-day Tehran. Johan is a gentle and thoughtful young man...LEARN MORE.

Cafe Setareh focuses on three women--Fariba, Saloomeh, and Moluk--in a triptych of warm-hearted, interwoven stories set in contemporary Tehran. Fariba operates a cafe...LEARN MORE.

One of Iran's hottest young filmmakers, actor-director Arash Moayerian (editor on Friday's Soldiers), spins a bittersweet tale of romance in this delightful comedy about two young...LEARN MORE.

Marriage is supposed to be a celebration, but it's a criminal enterprise for two of the characters in this Iranian heist comedy. Reminiscent of Take the Money and Run and Raising Arizona, Syrus...LEARN MORE.

Honored as Best First Feature at the Montreal Festival of World Cinema, Mariam Shahriar's debut shows an "unusual gift for expressive imagery" (Leslie Camhi, The Village Voice)...LEARN MORE.

Director Abolfazl Jalili offers a compassionate story of a young Afghan refugee living illegally in Iran. Though the film is shot in a modest documentary style that adds a certain immediacy...LEARN MORE.

Set against a tumultuous backdrop of fear and violence, Haim Bouzaglo's acclaimed films tells of a Tel Aviv playwright who attempts to make sense of his country's carnage and his own...LEARN MORE.

In this breezy domestic comedy and Iranian box office smash, Donya (Hediyeh Tehrani) returns from America to discover that it is not easy to find a place to live in modern-day Tehran...LEARN MORE.

From Nasser Taghvai, one of the original filmmakers of the Iranian New Wave, comes this rare glimpse into the performance of a ta'zieh, an ancient and uniquely Iranian passion play that...LEARN MORE.

From Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina to Christians in Lebanon, director Jacques Debs shows us two groups long forgotten or overlooked. For centuries, Muslims in Europe and Christians in...LEARN MORE.

From one of Iran's most talented young filmmakers comes this darkly comic drama about two lost souls who run a struggling gas station in a deserted area of Iran. With few customers and little...LEARN MORE.

Two explosive, shocking, and profound films from Amos Gitai. Set mostly in the West Bank before and during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon (some scenes were also shot there)...LEARN MORE.

One of the major filmmakers of Iran's New Wave, Massoud Kimiayi, directs this haunting drama about four soldiers who come to Tehran on military leave. Accompanied by their commanding...LEARN MORE.

On any given day a variety of travelers take the road from Tehran to northern Iraq. On one particular day, four carloads of people take the main road, each for different reasons. The characters do...LEARN MORE.

A married, small-town factory manager grapples with his company's dire financial situation while becoming involved in an unstable affair with a modern woman from Tehran...LEARN MORE.

Two extremely simple yet utterly profound films, exploring the history of a house in East Jerusalem as a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the first film, House (1980)...LEARN MORE.

For many, '"Iranian film" conjures up the art cinema of Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, but the country also produces its share of genre flicks with characters and conventions familiar to movie-lovers in any country. This two-pack offers a road movie and a romantic comedy - Iranian style. By turns pleasant and profound, Going By (2001, 86 mins.) is a remarkable debut feature for Iraj Karimi, one of Iran's most prominent film critics. On any given day, a variety of travelers take the road from Tehran to northern Iraq. On one particular day, four carloads of people take the main road, each for different reasons. The characters do not know each other, and their final destinations differ, but their conversations about life and death have much in common. While staying within the conventions of the road movie, Karimi successfully adds a metaphorical dimension to the daylong journey of the characters. In The Pastry Girl (2002, 105 mins.), Saeed has been trying to marry the homely pastry chef Niloo for 20 years, but their rivaling families have used one ploy after another to block the marriage. Just as it appears that both clans have finally softened, fistfights break out at the ceremony, prompting another postponement. Iraj Tahmasb's Iranian farce skewers marriage customs and social conventions in a colorful fashion. In Farsi with English subtitles.

Iraj Karimi/Iraj Tahmasb - Iran - 2001/2002 - 191 mins.

Get inside the real Iran with two 2002 films from cutting-edge Iranian filmmakers. Despite being officially barred from leaving Iran's borders...LEARN MORE

The third feature by Iranian filmmaker Rafi Pitts is a "delicate cinematic poem" (Variety) about three residents of Tehran, each working towards a better future. It's Winter, or Zemestan...LEARN MORE.

Mehmet, a young man from western Turkey, and Berzan, a Kurdish rebel living in the underground, develop an unlikely friendship while living in Istanbul. When Mehmet is mistaken...LEARN MORE.

In this searing domestic drama about a very unique love triangle, a professor of architecture history divorces her husband after 26 years of marriage. She returns to the house of her father...LEARN MORE.

Despite being officially barred from leaving Iran's borders, Ali-Reza Amini's film has earned international acclaim as a standout of the Iranian New Wave. The film follows a young...LEARN MORE.

Produced in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the of formation of an independent Pakistan, this rich, well-researched documentary explores the country's brief but turbulent past...LEARN MORE.

Based on a true story, this Fajr Film Festival Audience Award-winner is an action film filled with dark humor. Ghassem (Hamid Farrokhnezhad) is a man at his wit's end and desperate...LEARN MORE.

A fascinating documentary from Rakshan Bani-Etemad (The May Lady), the most outspoken and respected female director working in Iran today. Bani-Etemad's film focuses on the...LEARN MORE.

Amin Haghi, a young writer for Iran's most liberal magazine, is accused of insulting the state when he publishes his dead brother's war memoirs. As he sits in jail, his girlfriend and buddies try...LEARN MORE.

For 20 years, Saeed has been trying to marry the homely pastry chef Niloo, but their rivaling families have used one ploy after another to block the marriage. Just as it appears that...LEARN MORE.

Set in modern Beirut, A Perfect Day tells the "delicate but haunting" (Time Out New York) story of a family still scarred by the Lebanese Civil War that ended 15 years before. Claudia...LEARN MORE.

This fascinating film by Massoud Kimiayi, one of the few active filmmakers from Iran's pre-revolutionary period, shows the personal effect on one man of the country's societal reforms. Amir...LEARN MORE.

The directorial debut of Saman Moghadam (Cafe Setareh) "broke a number of barriers" (New York Times). This drama captures the mood of Iran just after the Iran-Iraq war, in which...LEARN MORE.

A hotly debated comedy from Iran, Snowman (Adam Barfi) tells the story of young Abbas (Akbar Abdi), a man desperate to immigrate to America. He's so anxious that he dresses as a woman...LEARN MORE.

From Iranian actor-director Mehdi Fakhim-zadeh comes this searing drama about Behrouz, a man who has recently been released from an asylum after suffering several bouts of madness...LEARN MORE.

Two of the most important participants of the Iranian New Wave – Houshang Golmakani and Mohsen Makhmalbaf – come together in Stardust Stricken to give us a rare look at...LEARN MORE.

Coming off the unprecedented box office success of Cease-Fire, acclaimed Iranian director Tahmineh Milani wrote and directed this light-hearted family drama. Shahab Hosseini offers an...LEARN MORE.

In this Iranian comedy from up-and-coming female filmmaker Parisa Bakhtavar, a pretty but poor girl (Baran Kosari) gets into a fender bender in her father's car. She solicits the help...LEARN MORE.

A collection of thematically linked films by acclaimed director Amos Gitai. House (1980) and House in Jerusalem (1997) are two extremely simple yet utterly profound films, exploring the history of a house in East Jerusalem as a microcosm for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Combined running time: 148 minutes). Wadi 1981-1991 and Wadi Grand Canyon 2001 (180 mins.) are three interlocking films depicting a group of Arab and Israelis who nurture a fragile culture of coexistence over a span of twenty years. Field Diary (1982, 83 mins.) is an explosive, shocking, and profound film. Set mostly in the West Bank before and during the 1982 Israeli  invasion of Lebanon (some scenes were also shot there), it explores, as the film states it, "how the occupation manifests itself, and how violence against th  e Palestinians is legitimized." Its earliest screenings were greeted with vicious anger from armed Israeli soldiers; and the aftermath led to Gitai's decade-long exile from Israel. Arena of Murder (1996, 80 mins.), finds Gitai investigating the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin three weeks after the event. In Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, English and other languages, with English Subtitles.  Amos Gitai---Israel/France---1980-2001

One of the few Iranian New Wave films to be distributed in the U.S., Dariush Mehrjui's The Cycle deals with pervasive corruption under the Shah's regime. With its harsh, cynical...LEARN MORE.

Contemporary Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad became a legend in her own time for her innovative and controversial writings. In this extensive, three-part documentary, Farrokhzad's life...LEARN MORE.

Documentary director Mohammad Rosoulof makes an impressive feature debut with this simple but powerful true story of prison life in Iran, featuring real-life prisoners playing...LEARN MORE.

Sharzad, a lawyer in modern-day Tehran, loses custody of her seven-year-old son after a divorce from a powerful businessman. Her ex-husband's obsession with work and lack of...LEARN MORE.

Three of the world's most celebrated directors--Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, and Ermanno Olmi--join together to direct a trilogy of interwoven stories set aboard a train traveling from...LEARN MORE.

Iranian detective Mohammad Alavi (Ezatollah Entezami) continues to solve murders even though the traumatic death of his wife and two daughters has left him psychologically scarred...LEARN MORE.

In this provocative film from the new Iranian cinema, seminary student Seyyed Hassan is preparing to rise to the status of cleric when his vestments are stolen by a young thief. Seyyed tracks the...LEARN MORE.

From acclaimed director Tahmineh Milani (Two Women) comes this searing tale about the struggles of women in modern-day Iran. Poor Sima puts up with her philandering and abusive...LEARN MORE.

Three interlocking films depicting a group of Arabs and Israelis who nurture a fragile culture of coexistence over a span of twenty years. The films--Wadi: 1981, Wadi: 1991, and...LEARN MORE.

For her third feature, acclaimed Turkish filmmaker Yesim Ustaoglu (Journey to the Sun) adapts Georgios Andreadis' moving tale about identity and alienation. Waiting for the Clouds... LEARN MORE.

Actor-director Hamid Jebelli (Son of Maryam) offers a charming portrait of a mentally challenged man looking for love in a world that largely ignores him. Feeble-minded Reza works at a...LEARN MORE.