‘180° Rule’ speaks for countless women whose only language is silence: Director Samadi

Asha Bajaj
3 min readSep 25, 2020

#TIFF; #TIFF2020; #45thTorontoInternationalFilmFestival; #180°Rule; #Iran; #WomenRights

Toronto, Sep 23 (Canadian-Media): Directed and screen-played by Farnoosh Samadi, and filmed in Iran, ‘180° Rule’, is a family drama providing a glimpse into the customary Iranian family structure with universal notions of remorse and penance.

180°Rule. Image credit: TIFF

The plot of the story is about Sara (Sahar Dolatshahi), a school teacher from Tehran, preparing to attend a wedding in northern Iran with her husband Hamed (Pejman Jamshidi), and their five-year-old daughter, Raha when suddenly an unexpected work obligation for Hamed jeopardies their plan to proceed.

Sara’s plan to proceed with her daughter on her own for a long journey is rejected by Hamed. Being determined to join the celebration, Sara devises a plan to defy her husband’s authority and leaves home with her daughter. But an unforeseeable event changes the family’s fortune and leaves the pair in grave conflict and threatens every minute of Sara’s future.

With the late realization that stealth and calculated choices are no longer possible, Sara finds herself on a painful path to atonement.

Focusing on personal, small moments that make big differences and perhaps change lives, Samadi in this film turns intimate, seemingly a trivial moment into a showcase of female oppression.

The film was shot in 44 sessions in quite a few places, said Samadi to Dorota Lech, Tiff Curator of Central & Eastern Cinema as well as the lead programmer of the Discovery, during a virtual conversation with her, and added it was difficult to find the right place, for example, the jungle and looked at most of Iran.

She said that in her first draft of the script she wanted snow and then realized that it was difficult to shoot during snowing days and canceled that draft and wrote again. But in the end, said Samadi that they found a place which was not snowing for 15 years and decided to shoot there.

While shooting the best scene, said Samadi, in which earlier she wanted the viewers to see the snow, it started snowing. She said to Lech, “Maybe this is the gift from God for my movie.”

Asha Bajaj

I write on national and international Health, Politics, Business, Education, Environment, Biodiversity, Science, First Nations, Humanitarian, gender, women