The Friend's House Is Here

The Iranian government has long maintained a rather trigger-happy approach to censorship, to put it mildly. It stands to reason that the Islamic Republic would only tighten its grip in response to the largest civilian uprising since the 1979 revolution — a…

davidehrlich

Sundance Festival.  Following the lives of two women who encounter a hardship that threatens to break their creative spirits apart. So many good shots, beautiful sequences, and interesting characters to follow. Hoping this gets the chance for a bigger release so more can…

aracknit

doesn’t pick up where Kiarostami left off, as its deceptively cheeky title may imply, so much as it offers a counterpoint to what we in the west often see Iranian cinema as: an almost Whit Stillman-esque portrait of young artists in conversation, navigating their work and…

Justin LaLiberty

Sundance 2026 #5 The Friend’s House Is Here is so beautiful. The film is about the importance of art and how it can find a way to thrive in difficult circumstances. More importantly, this film is about how necessary it is to have a community that not only encourages art…

hugeasmammoth

the fact that actresses were not granted visas to come to the premiere

darina

The story follows two close friends and roommates, Pari (a theater director) and Hanna (a dancer), as they navigate the dangerous world of unpermitted art in Tehran. The duo belongs to a secret collective of performers who host experimental plays and dance videos without…

Cinema_Snobb

Set in Tehran’s underground art scene, Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz’s “The Friend’s House is Here” is a daring portrait of friendship and community whose Brechtian approach reveals their separate power. The film concerns two roomates—the dancer Hana (Hana Mana) and…

Robert Daniels

Bertolt Brecht will never be out of fashion Sundance #30

Marya E. Gates

A humble, very Sundance-y slice-of-life about two young women trying to fulfill their artistic dreams and passions in the big city — it’s just that the city is contemporary Tehran, so there’s a repressive government with a keen interest in controlling art and the…

Keith