Taglines: Lies may lead to truth.
Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader (Peyman Moadi) and daughter Termeh (played by the director’s daughter Sarina Farhadi). When Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father, Simin sues for divorce. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents’ home, but Termeh decides to stay with her father.
When Nader hires a religious young woman to assist with his father, he hopes his life will return to a normal state. However, when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him and her own family, he realizes that there is much more on the line than his marriage. With a very sophisticated and multi-layered screenplay, sharp mise-en-scene, and emotional performances, Mr. Farhadi raises crucial questions about family relationships between parents and children, men and women, the condition of women in Iran, and how one’s beliefs, religious and otherwise, affect our lives.
39 year-old Asghar Farhadi graduated with a Master’s Degree in Film Direction from Tehran University in 1998. Mr. Farhadi previous film About Elly, won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Narrative Feature at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. A Separation is his fifth feature.
A Separation is an Iranian drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, starring Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, and Sarina Farhadi. It focuses on an Iranian middle-class couple who separate, and the conflicts that arise when the husband hires a lower-class care giver for his elderly father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
A Separation won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, becoming the first Iranian film to win the award. It received the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bears for Best Actress and Best Actor at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, making it the first non-English film in five years to achieve this.
A Separation
Directed by: Asghar Farhadi
Starring: Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini, Sarina Farhadi
Screenplay by: Asghar Farhadi
Production Design by: Keyvan Moghaddam
Cinematography by: Mahmoud Kalari
Film Editing by: Hayedeh Safiyari
Makeup DepartmentB Reza Arabi, Mehrdad Mirkiani
Music by: Sattar Oraki
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material.
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: December 30, 2011
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