Filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei once again examines the notion of female victimhood in his latest work.
Friday, August 7, 2020: Chicago – The Facets Virtual Cinema will screen the documentary Sunless Shadows (2019), from August 7 to August 20. The film is presented in Farsi with English subtitles; was produced in Iran and Norway; and has a runtime of 74 minutes. Pre-orders are available now at www.facets.org/cinematheque/. 50% of all ticket purchases go to Facets in support of the organization during the closure.
As a follow-up to Mehrdad Oskouei’s critically acclaimed Starless Dreams (Facets, 2017), Sunless Shadows focuses on an Iranian juvenile detention center, where a group of adolescent girls serve their sentence for the grave crime of murdering their father, their husband or another male family member. Oskouei built a remarkable relationship with these inmates, whose frank conversations and playful interactions he observes, and who privately open up about the consequences of, and sometimes the reasons for, their action. Occasionally, one by one, they go into a room alone, push the red button on the camera and address their accomplices or their victims.
As a New York Times Critics’ Pick, Sunless Shadows has been lauded for presenting a “startling, raw confrontation with Iran’s patriarchy,” with Film Inquiry praising the film for treating “the subject matter with the gravitas it needs.” Throughout the film, it gradually becomes clear that apart from being a prison, this closed, all-female environment is also a shelter from an aggressively male-dominated society.
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FACETS connects people to independent ideas through transformative film experiences. Founded by Milos Stehlik in 1975, FACETS inspires audiences to engage with film not simply as entertainment, but as an exciting tool to bridge cultural divides, promote digital literacy, and expand perspectives through empathy-driven storytelling.
FACETS proudly presents the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the oldest and one of only two Oscar-qualifying children’s film festivals in the world. The 37th annual festival runs November 13 – 22, 2020.
Learn more at facets.org.
