Disappearance

Ali Asgari
Napadid shodan
Iran, Qatar 2017 / 89’
Border Dressage

The car glides through the dark and finally comes to a stop. A young woman gets out and walks in a hurried, nervous manner toward the nearby hospital. She claims she was raped. She's bleeding and needs an operation. Soon her brother arrives, or at least someone who is pretending to be her brother. The whole thing seems a bit suspicious. They soon flee from the hospital and move on to the next one, where they give a different version of events: they're newlyweds, and their wedding night has taken a drastic, unexpected turn. That's also not entirely true. It's true that they just experienced their first time together, but they're not husband and wife, and that's why they're going to end up wandering around the city for a long time trying to get professional help. This morality tale is told with the intensity of a thriller.

Piotr Mirski

awards

Les Arcs European FF 2017 – Cineuropa Award; Singapore IFF 2017 – Best Asian Feature Film, Best Actress

Ali Asgari

Ali Asgari was born in Tehran in 1982. He completed his film studies in Italy, and he is also completed the Berlinale Talent Campus 2013. At the beginning of his directing career, he made a number of short films that were shown at festivals around the world, where they won numerous awards. Disappearance is his feature debut.

Selected filmography

2012 Barbie (short)

2013 Bishtar az do saat / More Than Two Hours (short)

2015 La douleur (short)

2016 Cisza / Il silenzio / The Silence (short, co-dir.)

2017 Zniknięcie / Napadid shodan / Disappearance

Credits

director Ali Asgari
screenplay Ali Asgari, Farnoosh Samadi
cinematography Ashkan Ashkani
editing Ehsan Vaseghi
music Ishai Adar
cast Sadaf Asgari, Amir Reza Ranjbaran, Nafiseh Zarei, Sahar Sotoodeh, Mohammad Heidari
producer Pouria Heidary Oureh, Ali Sadraie
production Three Gardens Film
sales NEFS
language Persian