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Iranian multihyphenate Maryam Moghaddam was last seen on screen in Berlin in Jafar Panahi and Kambuzia Partovi’s “Closed Curtain,” which in 2013 won the Silver Bear for best script. She’s back as protagonist of “Ballad of a White Cow,” which Moghaddam also co-directed and co-wrote with her partner Behtash Sanaeeha. The pic features a potent central character named Mina, the struggling single mother of a deaf daughter contending with the consequences of a blatant injustice: her husband Babak has been executed for a crime he did not commit.

As Mina battles for a public apology from the judges who erroneously served her husband’s death sentence, a stranger, Reza, appears on her doorstep, saying that he has come to repay a debt he owes to Babak. As Reza helps her cope with the complications of her predicament, Mina gradually opens up to him, unaware of the terrible secret that binds them together.

Paris-based Totem Films has scored a raft of international sales on Iranian directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s Berlin Film Festival competition entry, “Ballad of a White Cow.”

“Ballad of a White Cow,” as sales agent Totem notes, is the story of a woman’s struggle for justice, recognition and independence in today’s Tehran. The film, which is being shopped at this week’s European Film Market (EFM), is centred on Mina (Moghaddam), a struggling single mother of a deaf daughter who is devastated to learn that her husband Babak was executed a year earlier for a crime he didn’t commit.

As she battles for a public apology from the judges who served her husband’s death sentence, a stranger, Reza, appears on her doorstep, explaining that he has come to repay a debt he owes to Babak. Mina gradually opens up to him, unaware of the...

Paris-based Totem Films announced Friday that it is handling sales on Iranian Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s Berlin Film Festival competition entry, “Ballad of a White Cow.” Totem Films will bring the drama onto the market at early March’s European Film Market (EFM).

The pick-up is sure to draw attention. Launched in 2019 by Agathe Valentin, Laure Parleani and Berenice Vincent, sales and production company Totem Films made waves at the Cannes Film Market last year, scoring vast international sales on “Gagarine,” one of the Cannes Festival official selection’s biggest arthouse breakouts.

Thanks to Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” (2011), Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi” (2015) and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “There is No Evil” (2020), Iran has won Berlin’s top award, a Golden Bear for best feature, more times in the last decade than any other country in the world.

While those directors are established values, Sanaeeha and Moghaddam are more fast-emerging talent.