TEHRAN – The 40th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival will screen the Iranian movies “Bone Marrow”, “Hit the Road” and “Maya”.

“Bone Marrow” directed by Hamidreza Qorbani and “Hit the Road” by Panah Panahi will be competing in the Contemporary World Cinema category of the festival, which will take place in the Canadian city from October 1 to 11.  

The documentary “Maya”, a co-production between Iran and the UK by Jamshid Mojaddadi and Anson Hartford, has been selected to be showcased in Insights.

In “Bone Marrow”, while doctors believe that her son’s leukemia is terminal, Bahar holds out hope for a rare procedure that would require a fresh umbilical cord from the child’s birth parents. A tense atmosphere descends upon Bahar and her husband Hossein as they wrestle with the unspoken truth: he is not the boy’s father. As she sets out to find her first husband, missing from the mental hospital she committed him to years ago, she unwittingly uncovers buried secrets that send both families into disarray.

Led by powerful, urgent performances, “Bone Marrow” is a captivating portrait of humanism and sacrifice for the sake of family.

“Hit the Road” is the story of one family and their mysterious journey through rural Iran. From early on, it’s made clear that the clan is on some sort of mission, and the drama slowly escalates as details are revealed.

From its humorous opening to its feverish, music-driven conclusion, this film both commands and rewards the viewer’s attention.

In the mesmerizing documentary “Maya”, families, photographers, and celebrities alike from across Iran flock to the Mashhad Zoo for the main attraction: the close bond between a Bengal tiger named Maya, and Mohsen, the taxidermist-turned-zookeeper who raised her from birth. 

Feeding, petting and play-fighting are par for the course in this tiger’s enclosure. But Maya, for her part, has never tasted freedom. That is, until Mohsen takes her out of the zoo for a feature film shoot and unleashes her on open fields by the Caspian Sea, home, sixty years prior, to the now-extinct Caspian tiger. As Maya’s world breaks open, her latent instincts awaken, and the close ties between tiger and trainer begin to unravel.

A true, modern-day story that unfolds with all the twists, turns and pathos of a timeless fable, this intimate and empathetic documentary brings us up close and personal with both its animal and human subjects, underlining the troubling power dynamics that have existed between humans and animals since the dawn of domestication.

Photo: “Maya” co-directed by Jamshid Mojaddadi and Anson Hartford.

MMS/YAW