The Witness
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.
Left Handed (2024)
Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival 2nd Prize Winner
Maryam, a 38-year-old factory worker, is the head of a family of four, struggling to make ends meet. In a desperate act to support her family, she makes a drastic and traumatic decision related to her job. This decision leads to unforeseen consequences, leaving her in a situation she never anticipated and facing a new, unexpected fate.
DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 15 min. Director: Nasrin Mohammadpour. Screenwriter: Nas.
The Witness (2024)
Winner of the audience award in the Orizzonti Extra section of last year’s Venice Film Festival, The Witness was co-written by director Nader Saeivar and Jafar Panahi who both won the best screenplay prize at Cannes for Panahi’s 3 Faces (2018). Maryam Boubani delivers a compelling performance as a retired teacher and family matriarch who suspects her son-in-law, a powerful government official, of murdering her adoptive daughter. A riveting portrait of a woman driven to seek her own justice in defiance of the malign forces working to conceal the truth, The Witness itself definitely challenges Iran’s censorship regime with images of liberated women unseen in Iranian cinema for generations.
DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 100 min. Director: Nader Saeivar. Screenwriters: Nader Saeivar, Jafar Panahi. With: Maryam Boubani, Nader Naderpour, Abbas Imani.
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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