“A startling, raw confrontation with Iran’s patriarchy.” NY Times’ Critics’ Pick!

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Mehrdad Oskouei’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Starless Dreams (2016),
Sunless Shadows takes another look at the lives of teenage girls in an Iranian juvenile
detention center. But this time the focus is narrowed: each of the film’s principal subjects
is serving time for the murder of a male family member. One by one, Oskouei invites
them to go into a room alone, push the red button on the camera and address their
accomplices or their victims.

With this new confessional approach combined with the ever-deepening relationships
he has with his subjects, Oskouei presents a picture of the disenfranchised in an
aggressively male-dominated society and of the prison that is their shelter from it

Directed by Mehrdad Oskouei. 2019. 74 min.  In Persian with English subtitles.