New Restoration

“Another unearthed gem of Iranian cinema … A hypnotic and quietly radical portrait of resistance, and a passionate rejection of patriarchy.”

Jason Wood, BFI London Film Festival

The Albert Camus quote that opens Marva Nabili’s astonishing debut The Sealed Soil, the earliest surviving feature directed by an Iranian woman, gestures to the project’s philosophical designs. Displaying a remarkable economy of means, the film charts—with Akerman-evoking rigour—the joyless domestic routines of a marriage-scorning Iranian teenager (Flora Shabaviz) whose seething indignation over her perpetual state of bondage is presumed to be the work of demonic possession. Her plight is exacerbated by the state-decreed demolition of her impoverished provincial village, a fate she’s powerless to prevent. Nabili’s spartan approach, which consists of largely locked-off shots partitioning space into discrete sites of labour, achieves rare moments of grace when the pattern is disrupted. (A transcendent scene, impossible in post-revolution Iran, sees the almost wordless protagonist shed her hijab and tunic in the rain.) Imbued with Bressonian austerity and a fermenting sense of rage, The Sealed Soil is nothing short of revelatory.

In Farsi with English subtitles

Advisory: The Sealed Soil contains a scene of animal cruelty.

“An extraordinarily subtle but powerful exploration of female subjugation and resistance.”

UCLA Film & Television Archive

“One of the best restorations of 2024 … [A] minimalist masterpiece.”

Gina Telaroli, Film Comment
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