Official Competition 2019

Pig

Mani Haghighi I 2018 I 108'

SYNOPSIS

The story’s background is the queer scene of Vienna. The young and talented actor Emil is rehearsing for the role of Phaidros, the Athenian counterpart to Socrates, commits to his love for Lorelei, a lovely and delicate transgender woman. But then a murder happens. Phaidros is a burlesque confusion about the passion of love, power structures and jealousy, full of sensuality, fantasy and madness.

BIOGRAPHY

Mani Haghighi

MANI HAGHIGHI (Iran, 1969). Studied philosophy at McGill University in Montreal before returning to Iran to make films. His first feature film, Abadan (2003), premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. His second feature, Men at Work (Berlinale, Forum 2006) won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2007 Asian Film Awards (Hong Kong) and the Best Screenplay Award in the international section of the Fajr Film Festival (Tehran).

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Critical text

Sharpened to the extreme in its political vision and deeply playful in its construction, Pig, the new genius film of Mani Haghighi, observes the fragile social position of the artists in Iran through a delirious plot. A serial killer is killing the most prestigious filmmakers in the country. Its protagonist, Hasan, is a censored and ostracized by the governmet director. At first, he goes from fearing being the next victim to feeling jealous of not becoming one of those martyrs. Pig takes the absurd comedy to the extreme in order to criticize the egomania of the creators in the context of a nation wrapped in an unstoppable paranoia fueled by the media and social networks. JAVIER H. ESTRADA

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