The Seed of the Sacred Fig [2024]

 The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a fearless demonstration of how even the most intimate spaces – the confines of one’s home, familial bonds and private thoughts – aren’t exempt from paranoia, conflict and violence when one resides in a totalitarian theocracy. Through a gripping tale filled with urgency, fury and dissent, Mohammad Rasoulof as much chronicled revolution in progress as he defiantly participated in it. Having courted bans and arrests on multiple occasions, it compelled him to flee Iran and take political asylum in Germany to avoid draconian punishments. The film both directly and metaphorically examined the “Women, Life, Freedom” protest movement through a seemingly regular middle-class Tehran family. Iman (Missagh Zareh), the middle-aged patriarch employed with the country’s judiciary, has just received a big promotion, bringing with it better salary and a bigger apartment, as well as troubling moral consequences because – like a puppet – he must sign on documents which will seal death sentences. Consequently, his family – comprising of his doting wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and independent-minded daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) – must keep his profession a secret. Meanwhile, massive protests and the government’s brutal crackdowns against it bleed into their home through disturbing found footage shot on mobile phones – which, in today’s times, have come to provide powerful counterpoints to complicit mainstream media – that the sisters secretly follow. Their physical separation from the turbulence outside gets breached when a college friend is grievously wounded, and the fault-lines within the family irrevocably escalates to disturbing proportions when Iman’s official handgun – in literal mirroring of ‘Chekhov’s gun’ – goes missing. Rasoulof’s polemical resistance was accompanied by terrific performances and a riveting script that unfolded like Matryoshka dolls.

p.s. Watched it at the 2025 Bangalore International Film Festival (BIFFES).

Director: Mohammad Rasoulof

Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Political Thriller

Language: Persian

Country: Iran