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Exclusive: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Iranian director Ali Asgari’s satire Divine Comedy, following a filmmaker’s mission to dodge censorship, ahead of its world premiere in Venice’s Orizzonti sidebar.

The dark comedy, satirizing Iranian film censorship and bureaucratic absurdity, draws on Asgari’s own experiences in his native Iran, where he was slapped with a travel ban and had his personal belongings confiscated after showing his film Terrestrial Verses in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2023.

The new feature follows 40-year-old filmmaker Bahram who has spent his entire career making films in Turkish-speaking Iranian Azerbaijan in northwestern Iran, none of which have ever been screened in the country.

When his latest work is once again denied permission by the Ministry of Culture, the censorship pushes him to the edge of defiance.

With his sharp-tongued, Vespa-riding producer Sadaf by his side, Bahram embarks on an underground...

One could hardly associate Iran with snow and frost, but the two actually dominate the landscape of Nahid Sedigh‘s feature debut “Cold Sigh”. Such “looks”, combined with an ethical dilemma as its certain topic and the elevated genre flavours with the motifs of a road movie and backwoods noir would normally ensure that the film travels the festival circuit after the premiere at Fajr back in 2023, which in a way happened, but not to the expected gatherings.

After the flash-forward opening shot that finally gets its meaning at the end of the film, we meet our protagonist Baha (Iman Sedigh) asleep in his old pick-up truck that got stuck in the wet snow. His uncle comes to his assistance, but he also informs him that the man called Bahram will be soon released. We learn that Bahram served a 20-year sentence for murder and his crime affected the whole village,...