Abed Abest

A group of students travel to a remote region to participate in a kite-flying event. Next to their camp by the lakeside, they find a restaurant with cooks that treat the students with suspicion. Bizarre events lead to a complicated situation, from which the students cannot escape.

Someone’s been murdered and the police is investigating in a stadium, the crime spot. They have arrested the murder suspect and they just try to find out the murdering procedure, however, it is quite complicated and the friends of the murdered person are not to be very collaborative.

One night, three bored young men in a car decide to pay a visit to an older man they only know vaguely. At first he’s glad to see them but soon afterwards thinks they’ve come to burgle him and turns a gun on them. When the police turns up, they’re all taken into custody.

Thrown back into a dusty 1980s and the height of the Iran/Iraq war, the film is a meditation on the cycles of violence and war and their infectious qualities. Clean, architectural sets are washed over by rivers of blood, as historical grievances are played back like excerpts from a documentary.

This extraordinary film centres on Amir, a young Tehrani who decides to tell all in a Youtube video. When Amir is granted a night off from caring for his invalid father, his evening of fun with friends takes a nasty turn with disastrous consequences. Filmed in one single shot, Amir's stark confession brings a level of honesty rarely seen in cinema. We cannot help but be swept up by Abed Abest's anguished performance, delivered straight to the camera.