Titi

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Farhang Foundation Short Film Festival—1st Prize Winner

Exam

Iran, 2019

Director Sonia K. Hadad plunges us into the harrowing day of a teenage girl (rising Iranian star Sadaf Asgari) who thought a math test was the worst she would have to face until she’s pressed into delivering illicit drugs on her way to school. Short note: Director Sonia K. Hadad plunges us into the harrowing day of a teenage girl (rising Iranian star Sadaf Asgari) pressed into delivering illicit drugs on her way to school.

DCP, color, 16 min. Director: Sonia K. Hadad. Screenwriter: Sonia K. Hadad, Farnoosh Samadi. With: Sadaf Asgari.

California premiere!

Titi

Iran, 2020

Though its title may be taken from her name, Titi (Elnaz Shakerdoost) only gradually emerges from the periphery into the center of co-writer-director Ida Panahandeh’s moving and always surprising story of small lives and cosmic forces. A hospital cleaning woman, Titi accepts being overlooked by patients and families, but when a physics professor (Parsa Pirouzfar) with a brain tumor scribbles in a delirium an equation he’s been working on his entire career—only to lose it in the trash—Titi sees destiny calling. Guided by visions, but beset by terrestrial troubles—including her abusive, itinerant musician boyfriend (Houtan Shakiba)—Titi channels her mystical affinities to help this man of science find his way and, maybe, just maybe, save the world.

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 102 min. Director: Ida Panahandeh. Screenwriter: Arsalan Amiri, Ida Panahandeh. With: Elnaz Shakerdoust, Parsa Pirouzfar, Houtan Shakiba.