Terrestrial Verses

synopsis

In Tehran, a new father seeks to register the name (insufficiently Islamic, he is told) of his newborn son; a 20-something rideshare driver caught on camera without a hijab attempts to retrieve her impounded car; a man with poem tattoos applies for a driver’s license; an elderly woman pleads with the police for the return of her beloved dog. Written and filmed in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death and the mass protest movement it sparked, this taut, pulsing drama - composed of nine deceptively simple, single-take vignettes, each featuring an ordinary Iranian citizen facing an unseen bureaucrat - brilliantly incarnates the absurdity, hypocrisy, and seeds of defiance that belie authoritarian control.