Tehroun | Téhéran (2009)

Synopsis

Ibrahim left his family to try his luck in Tehran. But in this asphalt jungle where everything can be bought and sold a dream can easily become a nightmare.

Involved into the traffic of new-born children, Ibrahim plunges into the city seedy areas, in Tehroun. This film noir gives a caustic portrait of modern Iran.

 

Cast: Sara Bahrami, Attila Pesyani, Ali Ebdali, Farzin Mohades, Missagh Zareh, Shahrzad Kamal, Pejman Bazeghi

Cinematography: Rémi Mazet
Filming Locations: Tehran, Iran

Venice (International Critics' Week): Critics' Week Award, São Paulo, San Francisco (New Directors), Transilvania (Supernova), MIFF (FIrst Encounters)

In his feature film debut, Nader T. Homayoun exposes the seamier side of Iran through the lens of classic Hollywood film noir. Ibrahim, a newcomer to Tehran, is begging for money on the streets as a widower with a newborn—or so he claims. 

The reality is that he has left his pregnant wife Zahra in the provinces in search of quick cash to support his growing family; the baby in his arms is a “rental” from a ruthless child trafficker who demands a cut of his daily profits.

Meanwhile, he lives in squalor with two hapless roommates. It seems things can’t get any worse—until Ibrahim makes the mistake of leaving the baby with one of them and it disappears, leaving him with no means of income and no explanation to give the gangster who now threatens his life. 

An Iranian expatriate living in France, Homayoun is intimately familiar with Tehroun (to use the titular nickname of the Iranian capital) and its culture. On the pretext of making a documentary that would extol “the glory of Tehran,” Homayoun went undercover to shoot his narrative with handheld cameras in 20 days—capturing the gritty, claustrophobic despair of life in the slums. -- Joey Porcelli

Tehroun, a title taken from the slang word ascribed to Tehran’s slums, aggressively captures within the framework of a breathless crime thriller the underbelly of a society twisting in ruin. Hard-working Ibrahim, a professional beggar, struggles to keep his trade afloat with the added accessories of a helpless infant he carries all day in the hot sun and a concocted tragic story of a fictitious dead mother.

The truth of the matter is that the baby is not even his, but rather a stolen child he rents in installments from the local gang lord in order to bump up his daily earnings. They live in squalor with his two longtime friends, both of them equally ill-equipped to care for a newborn.

When his pregnant wife makes an unexpected excursion to Tehran, Ibrahim entrusts the baby to a bumbling youngster, who promptly loses it to a conniving prostitute. Their meager lives now unraveling, Ibraham must either find the baby or a way to pay the difference, a journey that only leads him further into the self-destructive depravity of Tehroun.

Winner of the audience prize at the Venice Film Festival’s Critic’s Week, first-time feature director Nader Takmil Homayoun’s controversial exposé is a bracingly frank portrayal of poverty that revels in what’s left unsaid.

Tehroun’s humanist core offers up characters who remain nuanced despite being already long dehumanized by their surroundings, even as they try ruthlessly to claw their way out of them at any cost. -- Landon Zakheim

Read about this film

Country: France | Iran
Language: Farsi
Color: Color
Runtime: 95 min.