The Cinematheque

The hallucinatory and high-concept third feature of Shahram Mokri (Fish & Cat, VIFF 2014) experiments with genre, time, and long-take sequence shots as it sets a dystopian mystery-drama against a strange athletic contest played in a disease-ravaged society. ​“Eternal darkness seems to shroud the stadium where men with bizarre tattoos pursue a sport that is never shown or named. A body has been found here, and the police have already identified a guilty party. Now the circumstances of the crime are to be reconstructed … The disquieting feeling that time is dissolving, that past, present and future are becoming one, and that history has been halted is likely to strike a chord with how many young Iranians feel about their lives. Mokri’s intimate drama ominously interweaves place, space, and time in the stadium’s labyrinthine corridors to form a dark allegory” (Berlin IFF).