Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness (2019)

Synopsis

The storyline is based on an actual top-rated Iranian reality television show. A young woman convicted of the murder of her much older husband faces the next-of-kin of the victim (his daughter), who has the power to grant her forgiveness and save the perpetrator from the death penalty.

The young woman must plead for her life, while viewers can vote by sms to help avoid the penalty by getting the sponsors to pay for the blood money.



The actual TV show Mah-e Asal (meaning “Honey Moon”), aired daily from 2007 to 2018 during the Islamic religious festival of Ramadan, and often collaborated with Iran’s judicial system, which is based on Islamic law and includes the "eye for an eye" principle. The film has been transposed to Yaldā Night, an Iranian festival celebrated on the night of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

Cast: Sadaf Asgari, Behnaz Jafari, Babak Karimi, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee, Arman Darvish, Fereshteh Hosseini, Bahram Afshar, Faghiheh Soltani, Rakieh Behbahani, Forough Ghajabegli

Read about this film

Country: Iran | France | Germany | Switzerland | Luxembourg
Language: Farsi
Color: Color
Runtime: 89 min.