Maryam Keshavarz’s ‘Circumstance’

CIRCUMSTANCE is the story of two young women who try to live the lives they desire under an increasingly brutal dictatorial government. Materially privileged Atafeh Hakimi (Nikohl Boosheri) introduces her socially stigmatized friend, Shireen Arshadi (Sarah Kazemy), to the Tehran underground. There after school and before curfew, behind blinds blocking sunlight from makeshift clubs, the …

An excerpt from “Imagining a Cinematic World without Rape”

                          The problem with cinematic gendering is that when it comes in the form of fantasized characters made for the purpose of entertainment, then the foundations are conventions, not innovations. Audiences can connect to the mother figure, but they are not supposed to admire the femme fatale: what happens if they do? Is it because …