By Kayhan Life Staff
An Iranian feature film shot covertly in Iran and smuggled out of the country has won a special jury award at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Written, directed and produced by Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz, “The Friend’s House is Here” is a portrait of Tehran’s vibrant underground culture, and takes place after the Twelve-Day War between Iran and Israel in June 2025. You witness an underground culture in which street concerts, art galleries, avant-garde theater performances continue, despite the government’s increasing crackdowns.
The film was shot in secret, with only one or two takes filmed in the streets to avoid getting noticed by the authorities. Shooting only finished in October, and the directors were in post-production when the massive street protests broke out all over the country. As a result, they were not sure that they would be able to make it in time for the Sundance Festival.
While they were already in the U.S., their film was smuggled out of Iran into Turkey by two of their crew members, who hid the footage on a hard drive that started with a religious film — in case their drive got seized.
The film — which received the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast at the Sundance Festival — tells the story of two women who are part of that underground culture and refuse to be silenced by the regime: an avant-garde theater director named Pari (Mahshad Bahraminejad) and an improvisational dancer named Hanna (Hana Mana).
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Hanna has a popular Instagram account and posts videos of herself dancing (illegally) in front of historical Iranian landmarks, while Pari stages nonlinear plays showing how political stress tensions pervade everyday Iranian spaces.
Maryam Ataei — who wrote, directed and produced the film with her husband, Hossein Keshavarz — told NPR that the purpose was to tell the story of “sisterhood and a fantastic community of people helping each other,” people who want to have a normal life, post on Instagram, dance and be free.
“Resistance is an everyday act” for the young artists in Tehran, said Keshavarz. He said it was this defiant generation that had challenged the Islamic Republic of Iran in the recent massive street protests.
“Even if the government is violently cracking down,” he told NPR, “these young people don’t want to be told how to live. Even though the government brutalizes them, they take their lumps. So many people we’ve worked with have been arrested for such arbitrary reasons, but they keep on, and they’re there for each other.”
Unfortunately, the two main protagonists could not attend the premiere in Utah as they were not granted a visa due to the U.S. travel ban and sadly, one of the film’s actresses was shot in the face with pellet bullets during the latest protests in Iran and could not go to the hospital for fear of being arrested or killed. Yet according to Keshavarz, thankfully many people, nurses, doctors helped her hopefully save her vision.
Maryam Ataei, 45, grew up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. She completed her MFA in Dramatic Literature from Tehran Art University and her BA in Cinema from Soureh University.
Hossein Keshavarz, 48, grew up in New Jersey and New York. He graduated with an MFA in Filmmaking from Columbia University and a BA in History from Northwestern University.
The couple met 10 years ago and teamed up to make indie films together, splitting their time between the U.S. and Iran. Together they wrote, directed and produced the critically acclaimed Independent Spirit Award nominated debut feature “Dog Sweat” (2010), produced “Circumstance” (2011) and wrote, directed and produced “The Land of Champions” documentary (2022).
