Divine Comedy

Divine Comedy

Iran, Turkey, Italy, France, Germany | Persian | 2025 | 96 mins | Dir. Ali Asgari

Bahram is a 40-year-old filmmaker whose Turkish-Azeri arthouse films have been systematically silenced by Iranian censors. When his latest work is once again denied a screening permit by the Ministry of Culture, he embarks on an underground mission to bring his art to the public. Alongside his sharp-tongued, Vespa-riding producer Sadaf, he embarks on a defiant underground mission to bring his art to the public, dodging absurd bureaucracy and his own creeping self-doubt.

Never the one to shy away from exposing the heavy-handed interference of his country’s regime, director Ali Asgari (working with Alireza Khatami) adopts a tone of playful irreverence to celebrate the audacity of artists whom regimes seek to silence. In a brilliant meta-textual turn, real-life filmmaker Bahram Ark plays a fictionalized version of himself, blending stark realism with a wit that mocks the very idea of repression. Sarcasm and wit abounds yet Asgari never once trivializes his protagonist’s suffocation as he fights for his art.

Virtual Q&A with writer Alireza Khatami

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