Movies by Payman Maadi
Camp X-Ray
A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees.
A Separation
A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
Window Horses
Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying ope...
Viper of Tehran
The adventures of a movie director who gets involved in a murder case.
Opponent
In the aftermath of a devastating rumor, Iman and his family have been forced to flee Iran. As refugees, they end up in a run-down hotel in northern Sweden. Despite feeling powerless, Iman tries to maintain his role as the family patriarch. To increase their chances of asylum, he breaks a promise to his wife and joins the local wrestling club. As the rumors start to resurface, Iman’s fear and desperation begin to take a hold.
Walnut Tree
Qader, a bricklayer from Sardasht in Kurdistan Iran whose wife is pregnant with her 4th child, suddenly found himself amid a war crime perpetrated by the Saddam regime. On June 28th, 1987 Iraqi air fighters dropped mustard gas bombs on the city...
Life and a Day
Somaieh, the youngest daughter of an indigent family, is getting married and fear is overwhelming each and every member of the family regarding how to overcome their difficulties after she's gone.
Leila's Brothers
At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.
Bomb: A Love Story
It’s 1988 and, at the height of the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran is bombed relentlessly. The days that pass are full of foreboding, and yet, love, affection, hope and life itself manage to sweep away the fear of death from those surrounded by it. Love may often be difficult to comprehend, but death is a horrible certitude. ‘Bomb, A Love Story’ shows how, even when faced with the darkness of death, love and hope will find a way.
Night Shift
Three officers are tasked with escorting an illegal immigrant to Charles de Gaulle airport, where he will be forced onto a plane and sent back to his homeland. But when they find out about the truth, they have to make a difficult choice.
Parfum
A Los Angeles luxury real estate agent finds herself in crisis after making a strange discovery during a routine showing. PARFUM explores the absurd dichotomy between California’s ever-increasing obsession with luxury real estate and lifestyle culture (as depicted in Netflix’s hit reality show “Selling Sunset”) and California’s simultaneous increase in wildfires, mudslides, and other climate disasters.
Aporia
Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage grief, a full-time job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice.