Iranian & Afghan Films @ 50th Seattle International Film Festival
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SIFF is turning SIFFTY, and everyone's invited to the party!
SIFF has been bringing extraordinary films from around the world to our audiences for half a century now, and you’re not going to want to miss this year’s celebration of independent and international cinema. So come ring in our golden anniversary with us at theaters and venues across the Emerald City.
50 years of must-see films.
50 years of unexpected new favorites.
50 Years of Surprising Cinema.
The 2024 Seattle International Film Festival screens in theaters May 9–19 and streams on the SIFF Channel May 20–27.
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This year is the 50th Seattle Film Festival and it features a strong showing of MENA+ films from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
Iranian Films
Terrestrial Verses
Director: Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami
Year: 2023
In this absurdist, formally inventive Iranian movie structured around nine vignettes, a cross-section of Tehran society—fathers, filmmakers, schoolgirls, rideshare drivers—is interrogated by various offscreen authority figures and bureaucrats intent on making their lives harder.
Showings:
Friday, May 10th @ 6:30pm / Uptown
Saturday, May 11th @ 12:30pm / Uptown
Ultimate Citizens
Director: Francine Strickwerda, Flock This Way Films
Year: 2024
Subject: Jamshid Khajavi, Ultimate Frisbee
Filmed at Seattle’s Hazel Wolf K-8 school, this doc introduces Jamshid Khajavi, an Iranian American immigrant, school counselor, chicken rescuer, and Ultimate Frisbee coach tirelessly devoted to the city’s immigrant kids.
Showings:
Sunday, May 12th @ 12:30pm / Uptown
Tuesday, May 14th @ 4:00pm / Uptown
Runtime: 40 minutes
https://coupfilmfest.com/2024/more-than-a-game-jamshids-ultimate-journey-in-ultimate-citizens
Critical Zones
(2023) Ali Ahmadzadeh
With only the voice of his GPS to guide him, Amir drives through the underbelly of Tehran delivering hashish to his clients and friends. Winner of the 2023 Locarno International Film Festival Golden Leopard Award.
Showings:
Saturday, May 11th @ 8:30pm / Uptown
Sunday, May 12th @ 1:30pm / Pacific Place
Afghan Films
THE ETILAAT ROZ (with GUEST)
(2022) Abbas Rezaie
Showings:
Sunday, May 12th @ 5:30pm / Uptown
Monday, May 13th @ 3:30pm / Uptown
Turkish Film
(2023) Selman Nacar
One tense day in the life of a Turkish criminal defense attorney (Tülin Özen) as she wrestles with legal and ethical questions in defending a factory worker accused of murder while also keeping her hospitalized mother on life support. From Selman Nacar, the director of Between Two Dawns (SIFF 2022).
Showings:
Saturday, May 11th @ 6:45pm / Pacific Place
Sunday, May 12th @ 3:30pm / Uptown
German Film (about Afghanistan)
HOLLYWOODGATE (with GUEST)
An intrepid filmmaker tracks the Taliban’s first year in power in the wake of the United States’ Afghanistan withdrawal, centering on an air force chief and a low-level fighter as the fundamentalist sect takes over a former American military base known as the Hollywood Gate complex.
(2023) Ibrahim Nash’at
Showings:
Saturday, May 11th @ 6:00pm / Uptown
Tuesday, May 14th @ 12:00pm / Uptown