Tehran Taboo (2017)

Yaldā Night Music Video

During a film shoot in Tehran the director is trying to film a romantic scene but the government censor keeps interrupting and getting involved.

The executioner Xie Qi, who is in charge of the ghost-headed knife, will encounter the ghost of a woman who is back for revenge because he killed the female prisoner during the taboo of three quarters of noon. The people of the town were very angry and blamed Xie Qi for all the inauspicious things that happened. Xie Qi wants to use the old method of stitching up the human head back to its body and subsequently burn it to pacify the female ghost, but unexpectedly the human head was stolen, and the body sewer was killed. The case of the town’s wealthy merchants grave moving and the girl’s disappearance, things start coming together, and Xie Qi is now in grave danger…

Documentary directed by W.K. Border, that which dives into the aspects of contemporary Gothic subculture, vampirism, and BDSM culture. Filmed in 1997 in California.

It tells a variety of stories about love that has gone wrong: a brother and sister in an illicit relationship, a married painter who falls in love with his young male life model, a dance school teacher who is besotted with his senior student, and a lesbian couple, one of whom has role-play paranoia, and is caught in a complex love triangle.

Mike Epps, Richard Pryor Jr. and others recount the culture-defining influence of Richard Pryor - one of America's most brilliant, iconic comic minds.

A high priest tries to force a young beauty to marry a pearl trader who is masquerading as the god Balu.

This story starts in 1980 in Paris as the memories of Andrei Borodin, a Soviet agent, take the action back to 1943 during the Teheran meetings of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. A high-ranking Nazi officer developed a plan to assassinate the three world leaders in order to undermine the Allied forces. He commissioned the German agent Max Richard to carry out his plan, but it failed miserably due to the quick action and thinking of Andrei. While in Teheran, Andrei met a French woman, Marie Louni, living in the city and they had a brief but intense affair. Nearly four decades later, the Nazi officer has been captured - but not for long. Freed by terrorists, the officer is hunting down the German agent who failed to carry out the planned assassinations. Max lives at Françoise, a young French woman, who hides him.

Saleem is an Indian student living in Leeds with his parents. He meets Daz at a gay cruising spot, and they have a night of mutually enjoyable sex. Saleem is nonetheless ashamed of himself and what he has done the next day.

RUNAWAY follows the stories of five young girls who arrive at a refuge in Iran’s capital city Tehran, having run away from abusive or neglectful families. Some are in despair, others are simply mischievous; but somehow they must all learn to face the future.

For Ted, prom night went about as bad as it’s possible for any night to go. Thirteen years later, he finally gets another chance with his old prom date, only to run up against other suitors including the sleazy detective he hired to find her.

Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.

Tehran Is the Capital of Iran (1966-79) documents life in a deprived district in the south of Tehran. The images of destitution in Tehran's poor areas is accompanied by a variety of spoken accounts: the official viewpoint on the district's living conditions, what the inhabitants have to say, and occasional extracts read out of school manuals. The key element in Shirdel's film is the counterpoint effect he creates with image and sound. His impressively powerful portrayal of social unease helps reinforce the impact of his astonishing documentary images and social themes.

Every year, thousands of commercials are made that never reach our TV screens, deemed too shocking to see. In order to make it onto the screen, they must clear all manner of obstacles, from fussy clients to obsessive regulators and restrictive rights issues. X-Rated takes a look at these outlawed pieces of advertising, revealing the most explicit, controversial and shocking ads never seen. These are ads that break all manner of taboos, from sex, violence, blasphemy, homosexuality, animal cruelty, rapping pensioners, swearing children, suicidal toys and naked athletes to Kylie in her undies on a bucking bronco. Amongst the contributors are advertising executives, producers and censors. The programme also takes a look at the embarrassing world of western celebrities in Japanese ads.

FEATHERED COCAINE is not a wildlife documentary. It is a documentary about the international trade of falcons. After the trade of drugs, people and weapons, smuggling falcons is ranked No 4 in the list of the most profitable illegal trades. Most people are not aware that the effects of the falcon trade has exerted huge influence over thousands of years on politics, economy and society all around the world. FEATHERED COCAINE reveals in an investigative way the contexts between the trade of falcons and historical events, where royal dynasties, institutions like the CIA and the KGB, the oil industry and Al Queda were involved. This documentary was filmed and released shortly before the 'supposed' execution of Osama bin Laden, who CIA Operative Alan Parrot & his Team had met with 6 times between 2004 & 2010. As of October 11th, 2020.

A young woman is murdered by her own father, with the help of her younger brother. She is secretly buried in the cellar, a space where the women of the family weave carpets and perform other domestic chores. Her loss, or perhaps her presence, continues to haunt the family as it reverberates through the following generations. Ayyari’s film is staged exclusively in this house and was banned several times in Iran.

Between 1933 and 1945 roughly 1200 films were made in Germany, of which 300 were banned by the Allied forces. Today, around 40 films, called "Vorbehaltsfilme", are locked away from the public with an uncertain future. Should they be re-released, destroyed, or continue to be neglected? Verbotene Filme takes a closer look at some of these forbidden films.

Mitsuki and Yuya become stepsister and stepbrother because of their parents' marriage. Mitsuki can't get along with her new family and Yuya doesn't know how to approach his new stepsister. One day, Mitsuki becomes possessed by the spirit of Hiyori. Hiyori likes Yuya and believes Yuya can help her get to heaven. Hiyori places a leather chastity belt upon on Mitsuki and a plan takes place to help send Hiyori to heaven.

A widower and two of his sons become infatuated by their beautiful housekeeper, and all three set out to seduce her using their own unique methods.

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

The dialogue-less film follows the major life stages of a castaway on a deserted tropical island populated by turtles, crabs and birds.

Separated from his daughter, a father with an intellectual disability must prove his innocence when he is jailed for the death of a commander's child.

In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.

Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.