A week before Eid al-Fitr on June 26, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, three new films have hit cinemas across Iran to help increase the box-office which saw a decline during Ramadan, compared to the earlier months.
‘Subdued’ directed by Hamid Nematollah and ‘Melancholia’ by Morteza Atash-Zamzam started screening on June 17 and ‘Oxidan’ by Hamed Mohammadi releases today, June 21, Honaronline reported.
Three years after his last film ‘Hard Make-Up’, Nematollah has brought a new one to the screen, on the theme of women and society.
In ‘Subdued’, Leila Hatami plays the role of a divorcee, Mina, who falls in love with Kamran, manager (performed by Kourosh Tahami) of a restaurant where she works. Kamran has a crush on her too but as Mina’s love grows for him, he gets reluctant to continue the relationship.
The romance drama is Nematollah’s fourth feature film which was premiered at the 35th Fajr Film Festival in February. It was welcomed by the audience and received positive reviews from critics and won three awards, including the Crystal Simorgh for the best actress for Hatami.
Nematollah’s previous three movies have all been warmly received by both the public and critics.
‘Melancholia’, Atash-Zamzam’s debut film as a director, deals with people who suffer from dissociative identity disorder (DID), also known as multiple personality disorder (MPD), a mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality traits.
One of the major features of the film, which was completely shot in Isfahan, is the architecture of the ancient city which is highlighted in the background.
The cast includes Leila Otadi, Mohamadreza Hedayati, Laleh Eskandari and Nader Fallah among others.
Comedy Among New Releases
A comedy is also among the newly-released films. ‘Oxidan’ is the second film by the young director Hamed Mohammadi which is produced by his father, Manouchehr, one of the renowned producers.
It starts with the illegal immigration of a girl to a foreign country and follows her fiancé’s efforts to bring her back to Iran. He also tries getting a visa to join his fiancé, and to do so, he pretends to be a priest for a while. This part of the movie reminds the audience of the 2004 comedy ‘The Lizard’ by Kamal Tabrizi which was also produced by Manouchehr Mohammadi. The film was about a criminal who, trying to escape the country, impersonates a hospitalized clergyman by stealing his clothes and identity.
Javad Ezzati, Amir Jafari, Shabnam Moqadami. Shaqayeq Dehqan, Reza Behboudi, Linda Kiani and Ali Ostadi are in the cast.
Iran cinema has seen great days on sales in the first three months of the current fiscal year that started in March.
The 16 movies released in the first three months have grossed $17 million locally, equal to the same amount earned in the previous year for the corresponding period. However, there were 20 movies last year whose total sale reached $17 million. This year, there is a slight upward trend in the movie sales where fewer films have made the same numbers.
So far, the top three films in this year’s annual box-office list, have earned big money, with sales of over $3.5 million, and the top two are now titled as Iran’s best sellers of all time, ‘Patrol 2’ by Saeed Soheili ($5.3 million) and ‘The Good, the Bad and the Frivolous’ by Peyman Qasemkhani ($4.4 million).
