Archive - Festival 41

Exiled Iranians Hover Between Worlds in a Dark Protest Film With a Light Touch

Variety
  • Archive - Festival 41
  • Director: Abdolreza Kahani
  • Canada 2025
  • 94 minutes
  • , English
  • Subtitles in Hebrew, English

Mojtaba is a reclusive mortician living and working in Canada, a specialist in washing corpses before burial, following Islamic tradition. One day Mojtaba receives an unusual request: to meet Jana, an exiled Iranian singer hiding in the countryside. A dissident whose protest songs have made her a target of the Iranian authorities, Jana (played by real-life singer Golazin Ardestani, aka Gola) tells Mojtaba that she wants him to wash her body when she commits suicide. The request forces him to confront the collision of duty, faith, and rebellion—an encounter that forever alters the course of his life. 

Mortician - a unique, sensitive, and haunting drama - burns hot against the snowbound landscape. The film had its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Sean Connery Prize for Filmmaking Excellence.

Filmography: Nina (2024), A Shrine (2024).

13.10 - Screening with the actor and actress in the lead roles and the film's producer.


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  • Director Abdolreza Kahani
  • Production Abdolreza Kahani
  • Script Abdolreza Kahani
  • Cinematography Abdolreza Kahani
  • Editing Abdolreza Kahani
  • Music Gola, Schubert Avakian
  • Festivals Edinburgh (Sean Connery Prize for Filmmaking Excellence)
  • Actors Nima Sadr, Gola, Erfan Bokaei, Rahim Bahrami, Hamidreza Hosseini
  • Source Visit Films