TERRESTRIAL VERSES

Iran202377 minPersian with English subtitlesToronto Premiere

A job interview, a children’s clothing store, a government registry office. These are just some of the everyday sites for which the characters of Terrestrial Verses must navigate cultural, religious, and institutional constraints imposed on them. Featuring dynamic and fine-tuned performances, the 11 vignettes with conversations (and confrontations) between onscreen citizens and offscreen interrogators are striking in their ability to feel absurd and regrettably real at the same time, a place where the mundane and the menace coexist. Through these stories, we see how citizens respond to and resist these restraints until the final vignette’s staggering conclusion.

Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari’s most recent collaboration came together after authorities shut down one of Khatami’s films. The two drew solace from Ghazal poetry, directly citing the poet and filmmaker Forugh Farrokhzad’s poem, “Terrestrial Verses.” Deceptively simple and brilliantly composed, Khatami and Asgari’s Terrestrial Verses emerged from the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran and draws upon empathetic connections to how ordinary people everywhere navigate and struggle in relation to power.

– Aram Siu Wai Collier