AroView: Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2025, this Iranian drama has been rightly celebrated for the bravery of its often-persecuted director, Jahar Panahi.

Made with great risk in defiance of the Islamic state, its subject is a direct critique of the regime’s human rights violations, yet the film finds plenty of humour in the predicament of a group of civilians abetting the kidnap of a man they suspect might be a perpetrator of those violations. It’s a film we can only presume speaks loudly for the silenced majority of Iranians.

“This is a film about anger, felt as deeply by the characters whose lives unspool in front of the camera as by the filmmaker who sits behind it.” ~Rafaela Sales Ross, The Playlist

“It’s another very impressive serio-comic film from one of the most distinctive and courageous figures in world cinema.” ~Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian