Massoud Bakhshi’s Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness, which screened at IFFI, is an eye for an eye drama set in a TV studio Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness was screened at the International Film Festival of India. Baradwaj Rangan January 23, 2021 17:51:43 IST Still from Yalda, A Night For Forgiveness. Facebook
The International Film Festival of India went virtual this year. One of the films I watched is Massoud Bakhshi’s
Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness (2019). It’s a tale of conflict, and the conflict arises from the very title.
The first word refers to the winter solstice festival in Iran. It is a celebration, a day of joy. The last word of the title, however, refers to the fate of Maryam (Sadaf Asgari), a young woman who killed her much-older husband. She says it was an accident. But she fled the scene, so the evidence stacked up heavily against he
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Sentenced to death, a young woman seeks atonement on live television in writer-director Massoud Bakhshi’s “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness.” The riveting and superbly acted Iranian drama, based on a real variety show, poses a moral crucible born out of a theocratic system that disfavors women amid the heightened tension of the on-camera spectacle.
On Yalda Night, a Persian winter solstice celebration, Maryam (Sadaf Asgari) leaves prison to attend the late evening program “Joy of Forgiveness” to ask the adult daughter of the man she accidentally killed her own much older husband to spare her life. With frenetic energy, cinematographer Julian Atanassov’s camera tracks the behind-the-scenes chaos as producer Mr. Ayat (Babak Karimi, known for Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman”) wrangles musical acts and famous guests before the surreal main event: preventing a hanging.