Iran in Focus: 'Under the Shadow' (2016)

(Written as part of an imaginary Iranian Film Festival Programme, Spring 2016)

(Under the Shadow)

We are incredibly excited to be screening new Iranian horror film Under the Shadow as part of its ongoing festival run. A break out at Sundance, much like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, it supposedly frightened and exhilarated the crowd, and has continued to do so at many other festivals.

Set in Tehran at the height of the Iraq-Iran war in the late 1980’s, mother Shideh (Narges Rashidi) must protect her daughter as bombs full over their apartment, trapped in the horror of warfare. Her husband has been sent off to war, and when a missile gets lodged in their building she must deal with a demonic presence as well as the horrors of war. From what we have heard coming out of the other festivals is that this film promises not to be a conventional horror, and the critical appreciation of it suggests an interesting as well an exhilarating horror.

Like Armapour’s horror, this is another Iranian film that deals with issues of sexism and gender inequality which are extremely relevant to Iranian society today, as well as in Western countries too. In a year which has seen The Witch (2016) garner great success, this maybe another very successful horror which deals with feminist themes.

As well as Under the Shadow’s feminist themes, much noise has been produced by the fact that the film is a Netflix production. Along with Beasts of no Nation (2015) and others of Netflix’s ventures into the film market, this represents the possibility of a very different kind of cinema. We possibly could be viewing an artefact of a new age of cinema, where cinema is exclusively brought to your home, bypassing the move theatres and multiplexes entirely. However, we do hope this is not the case, and that this exciting new film represents both the powerful voice of Iranian cinema as well as more diverse exhibition practices that gives films such as these a wider audience.