The Riverside

Colour, 35 mm
Iran, 2004, 80 min
Section: Official Selection

Synopsis

This Iranian drama takes place during the Coalition offensive against Iraq. It depicts the anabasis of Kurd refugees from the north of the country plagued by the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The key scenes are set on a mountain plain. The refugees – heading across the border to Iran – make up a sample of wretched and disoriented country people. Central to the story is a young bride who steps on an anti-personnel mine. Will any of them help the incapacitated woman? This absurd situation is reminiscent of the Oscar-winning film No Man’s Land set in former Yugoslavia. The drama, which comes close to a documentary, confronts concrete human impotence with the impersonalised machinery of war, represented by planes and helicopters. The film is a blackly grotesque probe which maps the malignant influence of political abnormality on the human community. Each refugee is submerged in his or her own problems, memories and illusions and finds it hard to act rationally.

About the director

Ali-Reza Amini (b. 1974, Teheran) whilst still studying (2000) made the short film The Apartment which won a prize at the Molodist IFF. In the same year he began to gain professional experience (as assistant director on the film Time for Drunken Horses). He made his debut in 2000 with the feature film Rainbow (2000). As director and producer he realised his own project, the film Letters in the Wind (Namehay bad, 2002). In 2003 he directed, produced and edited his own script, Tiny Snowflakes (Danehaye rize barf). It took the Special Prize at the IFF in Locarno, won awards at IFFs in Pusan and Thessaloniki, and is being screened this year at Karlovy Vary.