Divine Comedy
Any filmmaker in Iran who fails to comply with the government’s censorship regulations is bound to run into trouble. Take Ali Asgari; after the screening in 2023 at Cannes of his satirical film Terrestrial Verses, made in collaboration with Alireza Khatami, his passport was confiscated upon his return home and he was banned from making films. That has not stopped him from continuing to make films. But just how difficult that can be becomes clear in his new film, the humorously told Divine Comedy.
The Iranian director Bahram makes films in Azerbaijani-Turkish, but not a single one has ever been screened in Iran. When his latest film also fails to pass the censors, he decides, together with his producer Sadaf, to organise illegal, underground screenings. He has to contend not only with absurd bureaucracy, but also with the stress and anxiety that all this entails – after all, the censors are always on the lookout.
