VTIFF Presents: Breath (Nafas)
Host sponsor – Main Street Landing
Written & Directed by Narges Abyar
Iran ⎮ 2016 ⎮ Fiction ⎮ 112 min ⎮ Farsi w/ English subtitles
Iran’s official submission to the 2017 Academy Awards – Best Foreign Language Film
Iranian cinema at its best.
A little girl named Bahar lives a life spun from folklore and stories, always with her head in a book. But growing up in Yazd (a ancient province in central Iran) in the 1970s and ’80s, she is at the centre of a country in turmoil: the Shah is overthrown, Ayatollah Khomeini rises to power, and the first shots are fired in a bitter and protracted war with Iraq. Over the span of several years, Bahar finds daydreaming in her own fantasy world is the only way she can make sense of the pain and suffering warring humans inflict on one another. Aided by lyrical photography set against the spectacular landscapes and harsh background, a first person narration imbued with humor and an amazing performance by Sareh Nour Mousavi (Bahar), we enter a child’s complex world experience of family, school, friendship, literacy and social ambition. Semi-autobiographical, this coming of age film film was adapted by filmmaker Narges Abyar (Objects in the Mirror Are Closer than They Appear, 2013) from her own novel.