Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof’s powerful drama captures Iran’s turmoil through the lens of a family fractured by paranoia and the fight for freedom during the 2022-23 protests
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof’s tenth film, plants itself firmly in the soil of resistance. Set against the backdrop of the 2022-23 women’s protests in the wake of the custodial torture and subsequent death of Mahsa Amini, it was written and directed under unimaginable duress: the filmmaker had to flee Iran and escape to Germany after a gruelling 28-day journey that included travelling border villages on foot. The harrowing political drama, which premiered at the Cannes film festival in May 2024 (Rasoulof was present, along with some cast and crew members who had also escaped), is set to be screened as part of the Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam that begins on January 30.
An indictment of authoritarianism and an exploration of the fragility of familial bonds when trust erodes under systemic violence perpetrated by the Islamic Republic hell-bent on equating the law of the land with ‘the word of God’, The Seed of the Sacred Fig (the title refers to a species of fig that spreads by ‘wrapping itself around another tree and eventually strangling it’, and is the symbol of the theocratic regime) combines the fictional and the factual with great precision. The protagonist, Iman (Missagh Zareh), is an officer in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. A man caught between duty and family, he’s a steadfast loyalist of the regime who has served it for 20 years and is promoted as an investigator — a few steps away from being a judge — that proves to be more a curse than a blessing. But as the film unfolds, Iman is revealed to be more than a victim of circumstance; he is both a collaborator and a casualty of the system that demands blind obedience.
A nation on trial
Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), Iman’s wife, is a devout woman torn between her maternal instincts and loyalty to her husband, who hides from their growing daughters the very nature of his ‘sensitive’ job. The daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), represent Iran’s younger generation — bold, idealistic, and unafraid to question authority, even when it wears the face of their father. The heart of the film lies in its domestic sphere — a microcosm of a tinderbox nation on the boil. Each member of the family embodies a different shade of resistance or complicity. When Iman’s government-issued handgun goes missing nearly hallway into the film, the home becomes a theatre of paranoia and control. The family dinner table becomes a battleground.
Also read: Why Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to 8 years in prison
The missing gun, a potent metaphor for both power and its loss, haunts the film. Iman begins to suspect his family of playing with his reputation. His descent into paranoia mirrors the trajectory of a regime clinging to power through violence and surveillance. He becomes a judge not only in the courtroom but also in his own home, conducting interrogations and forcing confessions from his wife and daughters. The scenes towards the end when he sets up a camcorder to record ‘testimonies’ are chilling; they capture the grotesque absurdity of a man so consumed by fear that he weaponises his authority against his own family.
The film’s juxtaposition of the private and public is razor-sharp. Real, visceral footage of young men and women being terrorised, attacked, arrested and marching through Tehran’s streets bleeds into the fictional arc, grounding the story in an unflinching reality. These images — raw, shaky, and urgent — serve as a counterpoint to Iman’s suffocating domestic world. While the streets pulse with collective defiance, Iman’s home is a mausoleum of repression — of his daughters’ laughter and their desire to go on with their lives like many normal families: attending school/college, having a friend over, listening to music. But these are abnormal times, and each one of the three women in the films have a price to pay for their perceived transgressions: lies, betrayal and complicity.
Redemption, at last
Rasoulof operates in the space between binaries — fact and fiction, victim and perpetrator, loyalty and betrayal. This duality is reflected in the film’s visual language. The warm, golden hues of the family’s apartment contrast sharply with the cold, sterile darkness of the streets. The mountainous landscape of Iman’s childhood home is both a sanctuary and a prison, its open skies a cruel illusion of freedom. The performances are uniformly stellar, with Missagh Zareh delivering a tour de force as Iman. His portrayal of a man unravelling as an instrument of government oppression doomed to sign hundreds of death sentences for ‘dissidents’ is both terrifying and pitiable.
Also read: Cracked mirror: The cinema of the infinitely resilient women of Iran
Soheila Golestani’s Najmeh is a study in restrained performance. But it is Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki as Rezvan and Sana who steal the show; their sublime performances betray the disillusionment and desperation of scores of young women shouting ‘Zan, Zendegi, Azadi’ (woman, life, freedom) on Iran’s streets. The film shines in their little acts of standing up against their brute father, and questioning him. “Why are you interfering with our relationship with God?” asks Sana, when told that faith demands absolute obedience. Together, the two young women form the lifeblood of the film, the quiet revolutionaries not afraid to rise to the occasion even if means all certainties come crumbling down, not afraid to venture into the treacherous unknown, including the maze-like ruins of an old building.
Rasoulof’s direction is meticulous, his camera both intimate and expansive. The film’s visual language feels like a series of paintings, each frame loaded with subtext. Shadows dominate the mise-en-scène, wrapping Iman and everyone else in a cocoon of uncertainty, angst, and fear. Windows, mirrors, curtains, and opening and closing of gates become recurring motifs, symbolising entrapment and the fractured nature of perception. There is a mournful beauty to the way cinematographer Farhad Aslani captures Tehran. One haunting scene sees the two sisters, trembling but resolute, smuggle a bloodied and disoriented Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), shot in the face with buckshot, into their home.
The climax, which comes after Iman locks up two of the three women at a dilapidated labyrinth, is emotionally shattering, and utterly apt. Amid the ruins, Sana stumbles upon a stack of dusty cassette tapes buried beneath the wreckage of time. Among them, she discovers one containing a banned song from decades ago — a woman’s ode to the beauty of uncovered hair. The moment is a gut punch; you are forced to consider the chasm between what once was and what now is. The irony in the end is devastating: the protector becomes the oppressor, his love twisted by fear into a weapon of destruction. But there is redemption, at last.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig is currently running in theatres
