BEST OF FESTS

KOMEDIE ELAHI

2025 / 98 min / color

Renowned Iranian filmmaker Ali Asgari adopts a sharp, tragicomic lens to chronicle the relentless censorship stifling directors in his homeland. The story follows Bahram, a 40-year-old filmmaker whose spirit has been broken – a man whose every work has been denied a theatrical release by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. When his latest project meets the same fate, it’s the final straw. Alongside Sadaf, a formidable producer known for her caustic wit, Bahram launches a defiant mission to bring his film directly to the public. To succeed, they have to circumvent government censors and a sprawling bureaucracy while confronting their own escalating anxiety. The film features a cast of artists with firsthand experience of state repression, including lead actress Sadaf Asgari, who faced a professional ban in Iran following the Cannes premiere of Terrestrial Verses. In Divine Comedy, Ali Asgari captures the profound absurdity of a system buckling under its own contradictions, illustrating that when direct rebellion is too dangerous, irony and subversive humor become the only viable forms of resistance.