Sundance, Grand Prix for World Cinema
In Iran many crimes are punishable by death, but this can be averted if the victim’s family forgives the crime and accepts a blood money payment. Sound like the premise for a reality tv show? This film is based on the true story of a long-running and top-rating Iranian tv show that puts Judge Judy to shame. Maryam, forced into a “temporary marriage” with a rich and much older man, fronts the studio audience to plead for her life. You can save her by texting your vote. Award-winning filmmaker Massoud Bakhshi provides a cleverly-scripted and impassioned overview of the patriarchal structures that enmesh the unfortunate young woman who finds herself at the eye of the televisual storm, facing the prospect of paying an eye for an eye.
“the director and writer confirms his skill for efficient storytelling with a film reflecting on thorny moral and social questions around love and hate…Massoud Bakhshi methodically decyphers Iranian reality through the twists and turns of a captivating melodrama.” (Cineuropa)
“forgiveness is a noxious dangling carrot, as warped and socially tainted as the opposite precipice Maryam faces—and it’s this startling intersection which makes Yalda a great conversation piece.” (IONCinema)
Massoud Bakhshi
Massoud Bakhshi was born in Tehran in 1972. He made a series of shorts, including Identification of a Woman (1999), Tehran Has No More Pomegranates! (2007), and Baghdad Barber (2008). His first feature was A Respectable Family (2012). Yalda is his second feature.
