10th edition CIFF – 10-14 April 2024

Tehran: City of Love (2019 Feature Film)

Marisol Gómez Mouakad | Puerto Rico, Mexico | 2016 | color | DCP | 90 min | Spanish, English | e.s.

A former bodybuilder perks up when he gets the chance to train a young athlete, an overweight receptionist uses her sexy voice to seduce men on the telephone and a downcast religious singer decides to become a wedding entertainer. Three stories about love and loneliness in Tehran, in a film full of drily comic moments.

Three lonely people, each looking for love in their own ways. This is hard enough in any big city – never mind in Tehran, where individual freedoms can’t be taken for granted. In a sexy voice on the telephone, an overweight receptionist seduces men who wouldn’t look twice at her real ‘me’. In revenge, her sexy alter ego stands up every single one of the dates she makes. A former bodybuilding champion now earns a living as a personal trainer. When he gets a promising young sportsman as a client, he drops everything else, even a very promising acting job for a well-known French director. A singer at religious funerals is dumped by his fiancée. He tries to find new purpose in life by retraining as a singer at weddings and parties. That’s a lot more attractive to women, his friend assures him.

The protagonists’ search is subtly and gently sketched in this bittersweet tragicomedy supported by the Hubert Bals Fund. All three of them are looking for warmth and connection in a society that doesn’t embrace them back.

Place: The Cinemas 2

Date: 11 April 2019

Time: 21:30

Duration: 1:10

Place: The Cinemas 2

Date: 12 April 2019

Time: 13:15

Duration: 1:10

Year in
Festival

2019

Director

Ali Jaberansari

Camera

Mohammad Reza Jahanpanah

Cast

Forough Ghajabegli
Mehdi Saki
Amir Hessam Bakhtiari
Behnaz Jafari
Amir Reza Alizadeh
Aram Mahzari

Country

United Kingdom
The Netherlands
Iran

Editor

Ashkan Mehri

Language

Farsi

Length

102′

Music

Hamed Sabet

Producer

Babak Jalali

Production Company

Here & There Productions

Production Design

Payam Foroutan

Sales

Reel Suspects

Scenario

Ali Jaberansari
Maryam Najafi

Sound Design

Hossein Abolsedgh

Year of Production

2018

Ali JABERANSARI (1981, Iran) emigreerde als tiener naar Canada. Na een opleiding van een jaar bij Abbas Kiarostami’s Filmmakers Workshop in Teheran besloot hij zich in te schrijven aan de London Film School. Zijn korte afstudeerfilm Aman (2011) won prijzen op de festivals Premiers Plans Film Festival in Angers, Frankrijk en het Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival. Zijn speelfilmdebuut Falling Leaves (2013) beleefde zijn première op het Montreal World Film Festival in 2013. Tehran: City of Love (2018) is zijn tweede speelfilm.

 

Filmography

Aman (2011, short), Falling Leaves (2013), Tehran: City of Love (2018)