
The Old Bachelor
This program is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series 2025 UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema.
And How Miserable is the Home of Evil (2023)
Exiled Iranian filmmaker Saleh Kashefi manipulates official state media of sermons delivered by Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, to enact his overthrow at the hands of an off-screen uprising.
DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles. Director: Saleh Kashefi.
The Old Bachelor (2024)
Writer-director Oktay Baraheni’s second feature taps into global anxieties as a monumental domestic drama that doubles as an acute study of tyranny and violence. The lives of two half brothers have reached a dead end in the expansive, decaying mansion they share with their domineering father who wallows away his days on drugs, sex workers and emotionally torturing his sons. When he sets his lascivious sights on a younger woman (Leila Hatami), her presence disrupts the trio’s long-suffered equilibrium. Baraheni and his magnetic cast masterfully ratchet up the tension, building to an astonishing climax as wills are tested, lines are crossed, and secrets are revealed.
DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 192 min. Director: Oktay Baraheni. Screenwriter: Oktay Baraheni. With: Leila Hatami, Hamed Behdad, Hassan Pourshirazi.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a division of UCLA Library, and presents its public programs in the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer, among other venues. For more information about the Archive, visit cinema.ucla.edu.
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