‘Opponent’ debuted in Panorama at Berlinale.
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Milad Alami’s Opponent, which plays in the main Crystal Globe competition this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).
The second feature from Iranian director Alami, Opponent follows a man who breaks a promise to his wife and joins a local wrestling club, after the family have fled Iran for northern Sweden.
The film debuted in Panorama at the 2023 Berlinale, going on to win a special jury prize in competition at Seattle International Film Festival in May.
A Separation star Payman Maadi plays the lead role,...
MetFilm Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Milad Alami’s Opponent, which plays in the main Crystal Globe competition this week at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff).
The second feature from Iranian director Alami, Opponent follows a man who breaks a promise to his wife and joins a local wrestling club, after the family have fled Iran for northern Sweden.
The film debuted in Panorama at the 2023 Berlinale, going on to win a special jury prize in competition at Seattle International Film Festival in May.
A Separation star Payman Maadi plays the lead role,...
- 7/3/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
It’s striking how often the word “removal” comes up in various governments’ official policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers — a pointedly chosen term that conjures images of inanimate refuse or clutter awaiting collection, rather than human lives in desperate limbo. Fail to make your case to officials and you’ll be “removed,” a near-literally dehumanizing threat that hangs over Milad Alami’s tense, bristling social thriller “Opponent” like a pounding migraine. Following an Iranian wrestler and father whose urgent reasons for fleeing his homeland aren’t entirely what he claims them to be, this is a tightly wound affair that unravels an obscured past and an uncertain future neatly in tandem. Alami maintains suspense at both ends of his narrative without making a blank cypher of his protagonist, played with seething specificity by an electrifying Payman Maadi.
That galvanizing lead performance — by an actor who hasn’t attained quite...
That galvanizing lead performance — by an actor who hasn’t attained quite...
- 3/11/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Milad Alami’s Opponent begins with an Audre Lorde quote: “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” The Black lesbian poet wrote eloquently about the violence of silence, arguing that breaking through silence and speaking out is a radical act, as essential to self-knowledge as it is to communication. The protagonist of this tightly knotted drama — played in a knockout performance by Payman Maadi, churning with rage, desire and pained vulnerability — is imprisoned by his silence, literally wrestling with himself, to use the metaphor that gives the film its bristling vitality.
Maadi plays Iman, who fled Tehran with his family and is seeking asylum in the far north of Sweden. The reasons for that abrupt flight are revealed only later, but there are clues in a prologue that starts effectively with a blank screen and the sounds of body slams and grunts of wrestlers training hard in a gym.
Maadi plays Iman, who fled Tehran with his family and is seeking asylum in the far north of Sweden. The reasons for that abrupt flight are revealed only later, but there are clues in a prologue that starts effectively with a blank screen and the sounds of body slams and grunts of wrestlers training hard in a gym.
- 2/25/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sepideh Farsi’s “La Sirène” (“The Siren”) is opening the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand.
The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.
Panorama Selections
“After”
by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska
France
World premiere | Debut film
“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”
by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe
Nigeria
World premiere | Debut film
“And, Towards Happy Alleys”
by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani
India
World premiere | Debut film | Documentary
“La Bête dans la...
The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.
Panorama Selections
“After”
by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska
France
World premiere | Debut film
“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”
by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe
Nigeria
World premiere | Debut film
“And, Towards Happy Alleys”
by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani
India
World premiere | Debut film | Documentary
“La Bête dans la...
- 1/18/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
This Swedish relationship drama starts promisingly, but the script is too soapy and laboured
Sheets in disarray, two lovers avoiding each other’s gaze; Swedish director David Färdmar opens his feature debut with an emotional bomb blast in a perfect white bedroom. “So you can’t even say it any more,” spits out Adrian (Björn Elgerd). Finally, Hampus (Jonathan Andersson) concedes: “I love you. But there is no more ‘we’.” Leaving the wounds hidden, this is a promisingly imposing opening scene – but Färdmar, as he charts the pair’s breakup, can’t fully flesh it out in a stiff and increasingly laboured LGBT drama.
Initially, it’s a duel for moving-on supremacy. Adrian seems to take the early lead, hooking up with an ex, while Hampus appears the needier, tearfully manipulating him back into bed. But it’s Hampus who strikes out first on a new relationship, while Adrian – resentment...
Sheets in disarray, two lovers avoiding each other’s gaze; Swedish director David Färdmar opens his feature debut with an emotional bomb blast in a perfect white bedroom. “So you can’t even say it any more,” spits out Adrian (Björn Elgerd). Finally, Hampus (Jonathan Andersson) concedes: “I love you. But there is no more ‘we’.” Leaving the wounds hidden, this is a promisingly imposing opening scene – but Färdmar, as he charts the pair’s breakup, can’t fully flesh it out in a stiff and increasingly laboured LGBT drama.
Initially, it’s a duel for moving-on supremacy. Adrian seems to take the early lead, hooking up with an ex, while Hampus appears the needier, tearfully manipulating him back into bed. But it’s Hampus who strikes out first on a new relationship, while Adrian – resentment...
- 1/18/2021
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has closed key territories on its bittersweet portrayal of the end of a relationship “Are We Lost Forever.”
The Swedish LGBT drama, the feature debut of director David Färdmar, has been picked up by Outplay in France, Salzgeber in Germany, Peccadillo Pictures (U.K./Ireland), Arti Films in Benelux and Surtsey Fim in Spain. Films Boutique is in advanced negotiations for a sale to North America.
The film starts with the ending of a relationship. For Hampus it is a relief to close the door on his destructive relationship with Adrian, but the latter is devastated and heartbroken. Will he be able to survive without the love of his life, or is there a possible way of somehow getting him back?
The film, which had its world premiere at Göteborg Film Festival, was screened at the Cannes virtual market.
It stars Björn Elgerd, Jonathan Andersson,...
The Swedish LGBT drama, the feature debut of director David Färdmar, has been picked up by Outplay in France, Salzgeber in Germany, Peccadillo Pictures (U.K./Ireland), Arti Films in Benelux and Surtsey Fim in Spain. Films Boutique is in advanced negotiations for a sale to North America.
The film starts with the ending of a relationship. For Hampus it is a relief to close the door on his destructive relationship with Adrian, but the latter is devastated and heartbroken. Will he be able to survive without the love of his life, or is there a possible way of somehow getting him back?
The film, which had its world premiere at Göteborg Film Festival, was screened at the Cannes virtual market.
It stars Björn Elgerd, Jonathan Andersson,...
- 6/25/2020
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
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