Tehran Taboo

animated / 2017 / Germany, France, Austria / col. / 96 min.

Director: Ali Soozandeh
Screenplay: Ali Soozandeh
Photography: Martin Gschlacht
Editor: Andrea Mertens, Frank Geiger
Music: Ali N. Askin
Cast (voices): Elmira Rafizadeh, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Arash Marandi, Bilal Yasar, Jamina Ali, Farhad Abadinejad, Rozita Assadollahy, Alireza Bayram, Sasan Behroozian

An animated dramatic feature that juggles multiple stories to explore the sexual double-standard behind the hypocrisy of life in contemporary Iran: a young woman needs an operation to “restore” her virginity; a divorce judge (in the Islamic Revolutionary Court) extorts favors from a prostitute; a pregnant woman is desperate to work for a living so she may live independently; young women (purportedly virgins) are sold to Dubai for large sums of money. Ali Soozandeh paints a complicated portrait of a social order in which women are at the bottom rung of a ladder built on religion, the law, and plain old misogyny.