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A man’s voice drifts through darkness, summoning hopeful faces into a makeshift arena where dreams and dread collide. The camera never reveals his countenance—only the trembling outlines of actresses seated beneath a lone, harsh lamp in an otherwise empty studio. What begins as a routine casting for One Thousand and One Nights mutates into a silent contest of wills, each whispered instruction carrying latent threats.

Mehrnoush Alia revisits her 2015 short Scheherazade here, stretching its skeletal blueprint into a feature debut that feels at once ancient and urgent. The staging is stark: a single chair becomes throne, trap and confessional all at once. Each performer arrives bearing her own tale—of exile, of ambition, of memory too painful to voice—yet all share the same perilous spotlight.

Storytelling emerges both shield and weapon, an act of creation that may save or shatter. Through this austere prism, Alia interrogates what...

Mehrnoush Alia is an Iranian-American screenwriter and director. She graduated from Uc Berkeley and Columbia University film school and co-founded the film and theatre production company, Maaa Art.

On the occasion of the world premiere of “1001 Frames” at the Berlin International Film Festival, she talks about her relatively late interest in movies, Iranian cinema and other topics.

Can you elaborate on your career so far and where your interest in cinema came from?

I wasn’t introduced to the world of cinema growing up, so my journey into filmmaking began differently from most people. While many Iranians are cinephiles, keeping up with all the latest films and news, I grew up in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, a time when foreign movies were not available in Iran. Local films were largely propaganda-driven, and I wasn’t interested in that.

It wasn’t until I was seventeen and moved with...

Imbalances of power can be found everywhere, and the abuse that can arise is boldly tackled in New York-based Iranian writer and director Mehrnoush Alia‘s feature film debut, 1001 Frames.

“In the studio of a well-known director, female actors audition for the role of Scheherazade in A Thousand and One Nights,” reads the synopsis for the movie, which world premieres on Wednesday, Feb. 19 in the Panorama section of the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival. “But the women gradually realize that the director has more in mind than just casting the leading role.”

The film was shot without a permit in Iran where the filmmaker knows it won’t get into cinemas because such films typically never receive screening permits. Acting teacher Mohammad Aghebati, who also portrays the male director in the movie, oversaw the casting.

The idea for 1001 Frames goes back to when Alia was still living in Iran as a teen.

Paris-based Loco Films has boarded worldwide sales on Mehrnoush Alia’s feature debut 1001 Frames ahead of its world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama strand.

The feature was previously with French sales agent Alpha Violet, who said it withdraw after a disagreement.

1001 Frames will debut on February 15 and centres on an audition in a black box studio where a famous filmmaker is considering young women for the role of Scheherazade in a horror version of 1001 Nights (Aka Arabian Nights).

The process becomes something more disturbing as the questions asked of the auditioning actors become deeply personal, the camera more voyeuristic,...

Paris-based company Alpha Violet has acquired worldwide sales to Mehrnoush Alia’s feature debut 1001 Frames ahead of its world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama strand.

The feature centres on an audition in a black box studio where a famous filmmaker is considering young women for the role of Scheherazade in a horror version of 1001 Nights (Aka Arabian Nights).

Gradually the process turns into something more disturbing as the questions become deeply personal, the camera more voyeuristic, and the arrival of the director’s ex-wife, one of his friends, and a mysterious woman confirms there is more at play. As...

In his feature debut, Iranian filmmaker Aliyar Rasti weaves a story of greed and faith, focusing on a young drifter entangled in an older man's quest for wealth. The clever dialogue and spirited performances find humour amid a generational discord developed over a visually striking journey. As stubborn belief clashes with disappointment, The Great Yawn Of History becomes a tense drama in which the prospect of a fulfilling outcome hangs by a thread.

Beitollah (Mohammad Aghebati), a self-described man of faith, tosses and turns in bed. He is mesmerised by a dream about a box of gold coins in a cave. He decides to take action but knows his belief forbids him to retrieve the treasure. From the get-go, Rasti cleverly sets up the exploration of money and faith, showing the middle-aged man scribbling on fake dollar bills and scattering them around a market. Only unbelievers would pick up the money.

Aliyar Rasti’s excellent Iranian feature debut, “The Great Yawn of History,” wrestles with faith and disillusionment during a woebegone treasure hunt. Pious, middle-aged Beitollah (Mohammad Aghebati) believes his recurring dreams of finding gold coins at the end of a dark cave. But since picking up lost money is haram — or religiously forbidden in Islam — he employs a world-weary young agnostic, Shoja (Amirhossein Hosseini), to accompany him on his journey, resulting in a tale that’s as mysterious and melancholy as it is wryly funny.

The film is sold first and foremost by its precise performances. Both leading men appear to conform to specific types, between the overbearing Aghebati’s sharp, to-the-point delivery and Hosseini’s worn-out demeanor, burdened posture and sunken eyes. The contrasting energies they bring to the screen imbue their trip from Tehran to the rural landscape with withheld, sardonic wit, but Rasti never loses sight of...

A cross-country journey in search of a mysterious treasure puts the nature of faith to the test in “The Great Yawn of History,” the feature debut of Iranian director Aliyar Rasti, which premieres Feb. 22 in the competitive Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.

The film tells the story of a man of wavering religious conviction who dreams of a box of gold hidden in a cave. Convinced he’s forbidden by Islamic law to claim the treasure himself, he turns to a non-believer to assist him, setting into motion an arduous journey of both physical and spiritual dimensions as the two men grapple with notions of faith in their pursuit of a miracle.

Written and directed by Rasti, “The Great Yawn of History” stars Mohammad Aghebati and Amirhossein Hosseini and is produced by Tehran-based Para-Doxa. Heretic is handling world sales.

A visual artist with no formal film schooling, Rasti...