Downpour
NYFF50: Masterworks
September 29 - October 14, 2012
Bahram Beyza’i in person!
The remarkable debut feature by director Bahram Beyza’i tells the story of a schoolteacher who falls in love with the sister of one of his students in a poor village.
Bahram Beyza’i in person!
A major figure in both pre- and post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, Bahram Beyza’i burst onto the scene with Downpour, his remarkable debut feature that won a Special Jury Prize at the First Tehran International Film Festival. Mr. Hekmati (Parviz Fanizadeh) arrives in the poor southern part of Tehran to take up a teaching post. When his students misbehave, he expels one of them. The next day, the boy’s older sister Atefeh comes to the school to plead her brother’s case. Smitten by her beauty, Mr. Hekmati is nevertheless reluctant to approach her, especially after he learns that her hand has already been promised to the local butcher. Beyza’i creates a powerful sense of a closed community still ruled by tradition, where custom always trumps individual desire. Thanks to its restoration by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, this key Iranian classic can now be discovered by new generations of filmgoers.
The restoration of Downpour has been made possible with the support of the World Cinema Foundation. The restoration was carried out by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in 2011. Restoration funding provided by Doha Film Institute.
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