Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.
Like many films made under immense restrictions in Iran, Hassan Yektapanah's warm, humane and sometimes witty directorial debut matches subtle means with great thematic scope.
Djomeh (Jalil Nazari) is a 20-year-old Afghan man working on a dairy farm in Iran. He's also smitten - - unfortunately for him - - with an Iranian girl in a village store. His ardour not much helped by conservative attitudes, Djomeh turns to the farm owner, Mahmoud (Mahmoud Behraznia), to press his love-sick case.
That's it plotwise, but Yektapanah's supple script finds riches in this simple premise. There's much talk of exile, friendship, loneliness, vocation, age, custom and cross-cultural longing, set against a vividly realised work-day bustle and played with deft economy - - the evocative use of sound even lends the off-screen mooing of cows a wry resonance. This small but lovely fable of fraught love is an object lesson in making a virtue of simplicity.
Extraction shooter Exoborne's extreme weather makes the world "a playground of verticality, unexpected discoveries, and dangerous combat spaces"
Marvel fans are debating whether the MCU's new big bad Doctor Doom should be introduced in other projects before Avengers: Doomsday
Disney star says he could have played Jake Sully’s best friend in Avatar but James Cameron had to let him go because he looked like a "tall overweight Smurf"
