Institute of Contemporary Arts

Circumstance

Winner of the 2011 Sundance Audience Award, first time director Keshavarz’s powerful film provides a striking vision of a modern Iran rarely seen on screen, a glimpse at a thriving underground youth culture revelling in sex, drugs and transgression. The film focuses in on a pair of vivacious adolescent girls – Atafeh (Boosheri) and Shireen (Kazemy) – both discovering each other and their burgeoning sexuality, and struggling with desires that exist outside of the boundaries imposed upon them by their rigid society. Providing an at once bleak insight into the dangers faced by the marginalised in contemporary Iran, and an uplifting story of women challenging tradition despite the dangers they face, Circumstance is urgent, contemporary cinema at its most relevant.

Dir. Maryam Keshavarz. Iran 2011, 107 mins, Farsi with English subtitles.
Cast. Nikohi Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy, Reza Sixo Safai.

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