Tehroun at New Directors/New Films

Filmed with a skeleton crew just months before the Iranian "elections" and subsequent demonstrations, Nader Homayoun's debut feature exposes a side of life in the Islamic Republic that few Westerners see and that the Guardian Council no doubt wishes they wouldn't. The movie combines genres --- social drama, crime thriller, black comedy --- to tell the story of a professional beggar who loses his rented child-prop. It's not always successful, particularly at its melodramatic, hopeless end, but as a fictional account of a real social stratum it works.

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