Writer & Director: Farah Malek
Producer: Majid Barzegar
Director of Photography: Younes Amin Tirani
Sound Recordist: Ashkan Toloeian
Sound Designer: Sohrab Karamroudi
Distribution Company: Rainy Pictures
Cast: Nahal Farjadi . Katayoon Ghooshchi
Shooting format: 4k
Screening format: DCP
Sound: Stereo
Ratio: 4:3
Original version: Persian
Subtitled in: English
Running Time: 7:44
Year: 2025
Fiction . Color . Iran
In this short film, two nurses are confronted with a tragic ethical dilemma. Sahar, a nurse at a hospital in Tehran, is responsible for attending to a young political prisoner. After ten months in solitary confinement, the prisoner has attempted suicide, cutting his wrist with the pages of a book. He seeks death as his final choice — as if refusing to let the system decide for him, asserting that he still has the right to choose his own life.
Hana, the other nurse and Sahar’s friend, urges her toward a radical decision: to help the prisoner escape — not to freedom, but to death, a form of liberation the prisoner himself seeks.
Throughout the film, we witness Sahar and Hana’s conversations about this dilemma. Hana tries to persuade Sahar to help fulfill the prisoner’s wish, believing that the inaction of the people today will make tomorrow as dark as today. Yet Sahar resists, adhering to protocol and denial, while holding onto hope for a better future. The film tells the story of these two nurses facing a tragic ethical crisis.
Farah Malek
Was born in 1986. She graduated in Industrial Engineering but soon shifted her career to cinema by attending screenwriting and directing classes under the mentorship of acclaimed Iranian directors Majid Barzegar and Shahram Mokri.
Her debut short film, Little God, was selected for Venezia Shorts Italy. She also co-wrote the short film The Hunter & The Ear, which was officially screened at the Lift-Off Film Festival. Her latest project, produced by Majid Barzegar.
Email: farahdokhtmalek@gmail.com
