Nahid is the first sensitive and rigorous feature film of the 36 years old Iranian director: Ida Panahandeh. The only Iranian movie in competition last year, the feature won the ” Prize Avenir Un Certain Regard “.
Far from the Iranian capital where usually major Iranian Directors stand, it’s in Anzali, an Iranian coastal city (where Ida Panahandeh spent her childhood’s holidays) where she asks the difficult question of women’s rights in Iran. Sareh Beyat plays the title role of the movie – we certainly all remember her in A Separation of Asghar Farhadi as the great housekeeper.
This time Sareh embodies at the same time a mother, a woman and a mistress and brings up the polemical issue of the temporary marriage ” Sigheh ” in Iran and more widely the difficult emancipation for divorced women. Sareh drives the movie. She’s at the same time combative, manipulator for her beloved son in order to keep the child care, rebellious, agile with her ex-husband (a drug addict), sensitive and decisive with her new lover, affectionate mother with her difficult son, she embodies a determined and powerful Iranian woman. Nothing can possibly ruin her. Nahid is a rough movie taking us in the intimacy and the social fight of a contemporary Iranian woman. Mother and woman are in a constant fight.
A breath of energy and a lesson of how to be brave the iranian way.
On screen on January 24th 2016 – Trailer: