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Roya is a resourceful young woman who is juggling with loans to pay back a large debt. With her gift of the gab and her determination to fight her way out, she finds herself at the top of a small ponzi scheme that promises to be lucrative, but very soon the mechanism seizes up and a sense of control gives way to anxiety. With a sense of narrative sequencing akin to his senior, Jafar Panahi (The Circle, Blood and Gold), Mahmoud Ghaffari portrays a protagonist hemmed in by a double straightjacket, one where social and gender inequality are inextricably intertwined. His character is neither a heroine nor the passive victim of a crushing system but warrior-like yet evanescent. Arguably, this determination, which draws its energy from despair, can be seen as an obligation incumbent on any filmmaker practising their art in today’s Iran: the obligation to fight up to the point where one’s very absence leaves a void full of meaning.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
EN

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

A young Western woman is recruited by the Mossad to go undercover in Tehran where she becomes entangled in a complex triangle with her handler and her subject.