Synopsis

Night Bus, directed by Kiomars Pourahmad, will be shown at Spain's Valladolid International Film Festival held from October 27th - November 3rd.

It will also appear at the 13th International Film and Television Festival Cinema, Tout Ecran, in Switzerland, from October 29th- November 4th.

The movie was formerly screened at the Bussan, Oslo and Finland festivals as well as the Chicago Film Center.



The film takes place during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when an 18-year-old Iranian recruit is charged with transporting a busload of blindfolded Iraqi prisoners of war to a camp, traveling over a land-mined desert road.

The movie has won awards at the Fajr International Film Festival and also Iran's Cinema Celebration Festival, which is held annually to celebrate Iran's National Cinema Day.


Cast: Mehrdad Sedighian, Khosro Shakibai, Elnaz Shakerdoust, Mohammad-Reza Foroutan, Amir Mohammad Zand

Review Summary

Persian director Kiumars Poorahmad's minimalist, black-and-white war drama Night Bus travels back to the Iran-Iraq conflict of the mid-1980s, when three Iranian soldiers are forced to transport 38 Iraqi prisoners-of-war to their home base in a half-dilapidated bus. The obstinate and slightly irascible driver (Khosro Shakibai) must pilot the vehicle through a dangerous lay of land, packed with mortar shells and explosive mines.

Throughout the picture, Poorahmad repeatedly underscores the insanity of any such conflict that not only drove perfect strangers and innocents head-to-head with one another, but that brought the troops, collectively, within arm's reach of death - simply because of ayatollah-driven fanaticism that existed beyond the control of laymen.

Mehrdad Seddiqian, Elnaz Shakerdoust, Mohammad-Reza Forutan and Khosro Shakibai co-star; Poorahmad co-authored the script with Hasan Shekari and Habib Ahmadzadeh. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide