Cafe

A paradoxical dream emerges from the depths of Kieslowski’s filmography, rousing the condemned Iranian director Sohrab who, barred from making films, spends his days in a local cafe. However, a young woman’s request to showcase a live performance at the cafe leads to new complications, adding to the strain on his already troubled marriage and increasing tensions with the authorities, who demand “juicy” information in exchange for an easier life. Through the autobiographical Cafe, Navid Mihandoust invites us to savor a new and undoubtedly unconventional blend of Iranian cinema, with a lingering aftertaste of satirical critique aimed at his homeland's deeply conservative and repressive regime. An irreversibly cinephilic chamber drama, featuring a zen-like and uncompromising protagonist reminiscent of Nanni Moretti, with a sharp sense of humor in the face of all that is systemically irrational.