1001 Frames
Mehrnoosh Alia, Iran, 2025, 1h25m
In Farsi, with English subtitles
Official Selection, Berlin FF 2025
Another gem from the Iranian underground cinema!
Saturday 8 November 2025 – 8:00 PM
Innis Town Hall Theatre
2 Sussex Avenue Toronto, ON M5S 1J5
Rooted in real events, the film follows a celebrated director as he auditions young women for the role of Scheherazade in his adaptation of “One Thousand and One Nights”. What begins as a routine casting call gradually takes a darker turn as the questions grow increasingly personal. The director’s true motives begin to surface, especially with the arrival of his ex-wife and a close female friend.
As the camera shifts to voyeuristic and his requests cross professional boundaries, the women push back. Yet the more they resist, the deeper they find themselves entangled in his manipulative web.
Mehrnoush Alia
Mehrnoush Alia is an Iranian-American screenwriter and director. She graduated from UC Berkeley and Columbia University’s film school. Her works range from short films (Scheherazade, 2015; Sang Saboor, 2019; Faranak, 2021) to documentaries (Eye Level, 2022).
Mehrnoush is the co-founder of Maaa Art, a film and theater production company working between New York and Tehran. She is also an alumna of Berlinale Talents Campus.
