World War III

Shakib is a homeless day laborer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set of a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house, and a chance at being somebody. But even though the film is meant to deliver a harsh critique of dictatorships, the filmmakers themselves turn into tyrants who would do anything to achieve their goals. Shakib turns irreversibly into a terrifying monster... Reiterating one of Mark Twain’s most famous quotes (“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”) and alluding to an obscure saying by Hana Arendt (“in dictatorships, everything goes well up until 15 minutes before total collapse”), one of the most prolific figures in Iranian cinema delivers a multi-layered, self-reflective comment on making myth or history, on the boundaries of authorship and authority.