And Towards Happy Alleys

Despite censorship and repression, Iran’s artists and poets are constantly finding new ways to express themselves. Indian filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh loves the country’s cinema so much that she taught herself Persian and has spent six years making a lively declaration of love to cinema and Iranian film culture. Even if Iranian cinema is a foreign country to you, this experience will hit you right in the heart. Magical moments accrue in this political but liberating and warm film, like when Singh sings a Persian song (something the local women are not allowed to do), when the noise of a drill drowns out a conversation about eroticism on film, or when the great director and humanitarian Jafar Panahi makes one of his former actors shed a tear just by looking her in the eye with a small smile in the corner of his face.

Co-presented with Persian Film Festival