Iranian director Ali Jaberansari’s movie tells three different stories about lonely people living in Tehran, searching for love and happiness. Their lives are circumscribed by Iran’s harsh social norms and cultural politics as well as its uniqueness. An overweight receptionist working at a plastic surgery clinic seduces men over the phone with her sexy, sultry voice but never shows up to the arranged dates. A buff former bodybuilding champion works at a local gym as a personal trainer, and when a handsome young man becomes his client, he arranges his whole schedule around the client’s needs, even rejecting a lucrative role in a French film. A singer who performs at religious funerals gets dumped by his fiancée; he starts singing at wedding receptions and meets a female photographer and they start to get close. Tehran: City of Love engages the viewer with its bittersweet and tragicomic atmosphere as well as stunning cinematography. Its subtly written narrative threads play with romantic comedy conventions, cleverly placing them in an Iranian cultural context, connected and interwoven in unexpected ways.
Ali Jaberansari
Ali Jaberansari, Maryam Najafi
Mohammad Reza Jahanpanah
Hamed Sabet
Forough Ghajabagli, Mehdi Saki, Amir Hessam Bakhtiari, Benhaz Jafari
Iran/UK/Netherlands