This film is part of Rentals

Tehran Taboo 15 rating

In this gorgeously animated drama, the lives of several strong-willed women and a young musician intersect in contemporary Iran.

Animation & Artists Moving Image 2016 96 mins

Director: Ali Soozandeh

Overview

In this gorgeously animated drama, the lives of several strong-willed women and a young musician intersect. Their stories reveal the hypocrisies of modern Iranian society, where sex, drugs, and corruption coexist with strict religious law. In the bustling metropolis of Tehran, avoiding prohibitions has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation. Nevertheless, women invariably end up on the bottom rung of the social order. A young woman needs an operation to "restore" her virginity. A judge in the Islamic Revolutionary Court exhorts favours from a prostitute in exchange for a favourable ruling. The wife of an imprisoned drug addict is denied the divorce she needs in order to live independently.

Knowing the film would be impossible to shoot in Iran, director Ali Soozandeh employed the rotoscope process, which combines live performance with animation, to create a portrait of contemporary Tehran that would be impossible by any other means.