The Seed of the Sacred FIg | TIFF 2024 | Review by: Gal Balaban
This utterly startling and breathtaking film was literally a crime to be made in its own country, which adds to the incredible and urgent nature of watching it. It focuses on a family torn by accusations and conflicted beliefs on the country they live in and its future. That country of course being Iran, one of the most ruthless, sadistic, and barbaric regmies of the modern world. It’s a world we as viewers living in a nation with far more freedoms would hardly recognize: the leaders of the regime are everywhere in cutouts in a Big Brother-like fashion, and mistakes or free speech are not allowed, neither is female autonomy. The film brilliantly combines the real and the fiction; it’s not directly a true story, but at the same time, it’s happening right now -- it happened yesterday, today, and will happen again tomorrow. It seamlessly weaves the murder of Mahsa Amini by Iranian authorities into the story, as well as actual footage from social media of Iranian authorities brutally bea
