In 2015, Ali Ahmadzadeh burst onto the scene with Atomic Heart (included in FILMADRID 2017, a key piece of that edition), a true rara avis in Iranian cinema, a surrealist comedy set in the outskirts of Tehran that pointed out the darkness in which free souls are enveloped under the regime of the ayatollahs. With his new work, Critical Zone —winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno— Ahmadzadeh proposes another nocturnal immersion in the most inhospitable corners of the capital, taking Amir, a drug dealer, as his guide. The filmmaker has delegated him to observe what is going on around him; he is not so much an active protagonist as a witness to the darkness of his time. On his journeys to supply his clients, we observe a crude gallery of characters that takes us to a part of society on the verge of collapse, but which maintains a minimum of resistance. Shot in the most absolute secrecy, defying the morality and appearance of the system, composing textures that swing between realism and the hallucinogenic, Critical Zone confirms Ahmadzadeh as Iran's most lucid and radical auteur, and one of the essential voices of contemporary global cinema.

Subtitling contribution: SEMINCI. Valladolid International Film Festival