The Friend’s House Is Here
Khaneh doost injast
Both a charismatic hangout movie and a courageous act of dissent, this Sundance winner spends quality time with two young women trying to make art in Iran.
Hanna (Hana Mana) is a contemporary dancer who posts videos of her work online, while playwright Pari (Mahshad Bahram) stages experimental theatre productions. In Iran, both of these acts are illegal. Thick-as-thieves besties and housemates who participate in Tehran’s underground art communities, they live their lives – as artists, feminists and unwed women – in defiance of an authoritarian government that is openly hostile to everything they do. Armed with their friendship, their ideologies and a serious streak of rebellion, Hanna and Pari try to make art and make it through another day.
Nearly four decades after Iranian cinema legend Abbas Kiarostami’s breakout 1987 film posed the eternal question Where Is the Friend’s House?, Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei deliver a playful answer. Inspired by classic Iranian art movies, Jean-Luc Godard’s political films of the 1960s and the US indie mumblecore movement, The Friend’s House Is Here is a movie about how to live your best, most creative life under a repressive regime. Shot in secret and smuggled out of Iran to make its Sundance premiere, the film went on to receive the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast – a just reward for the non-professional actors (many themselves working artists) who appear in this film.
“A film about life-defining friendships, along with the healing properties of sisterhood … feels like a compassionate gift, given in gratitude to all artists who refuse to be silenced.” – Variety
Co-writers/directors/producers Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei are guests of the festival and will be in attendance at all sessions of the film.
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