Docunight #40 [Calgary]: Scenes from a Divorce

Directed by Shirin Barghnavard & Mohammad Reza Jahanpanah

2016 / 73 min

Persian with English Subtitles

* Awarded the best documentary film in the 4rth Afghanistan International Women Film Festival, 2016

* Nominated best directing and best producing of a documentary film in 18th Celebration of the Documentary Film, Tehran, 2016

* Official Selection in 13th IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, Delhi, India, 2016

* Official Selection in 4th Iranian Film Festival in Germany, Cologne, 2017

A young Iranian couple gets divorced after eight years of marriage. But they decide to continue living together in the same apartment to hide the news from the wife’s religious parents who won’t tolerate the idea. As time passes, keeping the parents in the dark becomes more challenging, as they happen to live one floor above this divorced couple in the very same building. After a year, the couple realizes things can no longer continue like this. They still keep their divorce a secret, however, as revealing the truth might entail something worse.

Born in Tehran, Filmmaker and Editor, Shirin Barghnavard is a graduate of Sooreh University of Tehran in Film Directing and Central Institute of Technology in Screen, Australia. Since 1999, she has made several award-winning short and feature-length documentary films such as “Profession: Documentarist”, “Scenes from a Divorce” and “Poets of Life”. As an editor, she has edited numerous documentary films including, “Hey Humans” directed by renowned Iranian Filmmaker, Rakhshan Bani Etemad and award winning Firoozeh Khosrovani’s film, “Fest of Duty”.

Cinematographer and director, M.Reza Jahanpanah was born in Tehran. He received his bachelor degree in Photography from Azad University of Tehran in 1999 and his Advanced Diploma in cinematography from Central Institute of Technology, Western Australia in 2005. Jahanpanah has filmed “Closed Curtain” (Winner of Silver Bear in 2013 Berlinale), directed by Jafar Panahi, the renowned Iranian filmmaker. He has been the cinematographer of various Iranian and foreign feature drama and documentary films such as “Taboor”, an award winning feature drama directed by Vahid Vakilifar, “Iranians”, a 105 min award winning documentary film directed by Mehran Tamadon” and “Sepideh-Reaching for Stars” a 88 min documentary film directed by Berit Madsen from Denmark. Jahanpanah is currently a full member of Australian Cinematographer Society (ACS). As a filmmaker, he has also directed documentary films like, “Lighting the Shadows” and “Scenes from a Divorce”.