Iran’s Cinema,
and truth in silence.

'This is how it'll be. Sometimes I'll serve the tea, and sometimes you will. That's how I see married life. That's what life is about.'

Iranian cinema speaks to me almost like no other. It is poetry distilled through light and sound.

Directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi, Mohsen Makhmalbaaf, and Jafar Panahi play with reality and emotion like putty in the palm, pointing you to look and see. No, really see.

Don’t look at the grand and extravagant gestures that are far too often manufactured, the director will tell you, but rather look here. He will point you to two young lovers on a roof, she reads a book as he courts her. She’s quiet, and he keeps talking. He thinks she may be too embarassed to profess her love back to him so asks her to ‘turn the page if you love me and I will get my answer”.

‘Did you see that?’ the director will whisper to you. Look closely or you might miss it. Her fingers twitched. Was she about to turn the page, or did she reject his love?

And you will turn to the Iranian director and ask for the answer but they will smile and walk away. The answer is what you make it, they will say. And that is the essence of Iranian cinema.

Here are some of my most favourite Iranian films in the world, in no particular order.