In an Iran weighed down by a struggling economy, two middle-aged brothers live with their bullying father. A man prone to rages and driven by chauvinism, the father’s abusiveness found his second wife leaving him. Now he picks on his eldest son, while the younger sibling fantasises about ways to kill their father. When the man rents out the flat above to a young woman, with intentions of marrying her, the woman’s attraction to the older son slowly pushes this profoundly damaged family to breaking point.

“For navigating such sensitivity around gender dynamics, Baraheni confirms his status as a leading cinematic voice. Few films in recent memory have prompted equally vigorous debate on what a just society should resist tolerating even in the name of unity.” (Gazelttels, Arash Nahandian)

Iranian film director and writer Oktay Baraheni, born in 1974, holds a degree in cinema from York University of Toronto/Canada. His father is the well-known Iranian writer and intellectual Reza Baraheni. Oktay Baraheni’s debut feature, BRIDGE OF SLEEP (2016), drew inspiration from Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”, and his sophomore feature channels the dark soul of Shakespeare’s family tragedies. In 2024, he made his second feature film, THE OLD BACHELOR, which is also inspired by Dostoevsky, namely his novel “The Brothers Karamazov”.

Filmography: 2016 BRIDGE OF SLEEP, 2024 THE OLD BACHELOR

Awards: VPRO Big Screen Award (Rotterdam International Film Festival, Netherlands 2024), Award for Best Actor to Hasan Pourshirazi (Transylvania International Film Festival, Cluj/Romania 2024)