The Cinematheque

“An intimate portrait of five Iranian homeless women … Nalbandi treats their accounts with exceptional tenderness, care, and compassion.”

Serene Husni, POV Magazine

The feature-length debut of Behzad Nalbandi premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). It depicts the lives of those who dwell in public spaces and streets, overlooked by society as if invisible. Specifically, the film focuses on women who sleep on flattened boxes in Tehran, known as ​“carton sleepers”—a practice not at all unfamiliar to people lacking shelter in Vancouver. In order to protect their identities, the director ingeniously utilizes stop-motion animation of cardboard boxes to construct scenes and characters, combining them with the voices of the real women narrating their stories. The movie documents gender discrimination experienced by and among the unhoused, and highlights the unjust treatment of women by Iranian authorities. In The Unseen, the handcrafted world of animation collides with the harsh realities of life on Tehran streets.

In Farsi with English subtitles

Post-screening audience discussion moderated by PELAN.