No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009)

Filmed illegally in just seventeen days, this "docu-drama" might have ended up as my favourite of all the MIFF movies this year. A fascinating, sweet, sad and illuminating tale about the underground (literally in many cases) Iranian rock/indie music scene. It's hard to take anything for granted after walking out of this movie - including actually being free to watch a movie like this :)

Proper review here.

It's talented director, Bahman Ghobadi, also wrote and directed the movie "Turtles Can Fly" which looks incredible.

While googling laws in Iran I came across this gem of information, courtesy of wikipedia:

Human rights activist... Shirin Ebadi complains that the section of the penal code "devoted to blood money, diyeh, holds that if a man suffers an injury that damages his testicles, he is entitled to compensation equal to a women's life," and this failure to make account for individual differences or cases is unfair. It means, according to Ebadi, that "if a professional woman with a PhD is run over in the street and killed, and an illiterate thug gets one of the testicles injured in a fight, the value of her life and his damaged testicle are equal."

Nice to know, hey ladies?

xx