A Simple Event | Yek Etefagh-e Saade (1973)

Synopsis

Yek Eteffagh e Sadé (aka A Simple Event) is the story of a ten year old Iranian schoolboy living with his mother and his father in Northern coasts of Iran.

The boy helps his father in selling the latter’s illegal fishing and helps his mother in shopping for her and bringing home water from a well.



The three characters live together in only one room. Their life is austere. The boy eats only bread and milk every day… One day the boy’s mother dies. That looks like a simple event in the boy’s life. The routine will again continue… -- IMDb

Cast: Ane Mohammed Tarikhi, Habibollah Safarian

After a third film in Iran, Quarantine, Saless moved his filmmaking base to Berlin, where he made Far From Home (In Der Fremde, 1975), Time Of Maturing (Reifezeit, 1976), and Diary Of A Lover (Tagebuch Eines Liebenden, 1977) - all critical successes featured at many international festivals.

Of his first feature, A Simple Event, Donald Ranvaud has written in the British journal Framework:

"This remarkable first work portrayed the life of a twelve-year-old boy, the son of a fisherman without a license and a rich mother, at the mercy of extreme poverty and despair.

The boy's days are all the same: he goes to school and returns home running to collect the father's catch, sell it at the market, and bring the money to the bar, enshrined in soft focus, where the parent is drinking his thoughts away quietly.

Day in, day out, the boy runs through existence with the smile of tranquil resignation on his face, until the 'simple event' - the mother's death - begins to take shape."

Berlinale (Retrospective), Berlinale (Forum)

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