ROPEWALKER MEMORIES
Ropewalker Memories
(Khaterat-e Bandbaz)
Written & Directed by: Hamed Rajabi
Producers: Samira Baradari, Rouhollah Baradari
Production Company: Touba Films
Production Manager & Executive Producer: Mehdi Badrloo
DoP: Amin Jafari
Editor: Hamidreza Barzegar
Music: Babak Mirzakhani
Production Designer: Amir Hossein Ghodsi
Costume Designer: Maral Jeyrani
Sound Designer: Zohreh Aliakbari
Sound-recordist: Vahid Razavian
Makeup: Azim Farayen
Cast: Mirsaeed Molavian (Son), Farzad Motamen (Father), Masoumeh Beigi (The Girl).
Iran, 2023, Arri Alexa xt, DCP, Color, 1.85:1, 5.1, 114 mins.
Logline:
When a young, female interloper refuses to leave their home, a father and son must rethink their restricted lives.
Synopsis:
A young man and his father live together in the same apartment. Against his son’s wishes, the father brings home sex workers. One day he brings home a young woman who not only does not respond to his advances, but also refuses to leave. Both father and son unite in trying to make her depart. However, when she does finally leave, but of her own free will, her absence becomes unbearable for the two men.
Director’s View:
ROPEWALKER MEMORIES is a film about possessiveness and patriarchy, and it addresses them where they find their most immediate manifestation: the home. Possessiveness goes beyond the ownership of an object. It expands itself to all aspects of life, it creates rules and laws, and it underwrites patriarchal and oppressive relations. The main character of the film is a woman, who stands within these relationships and opposes them. She not only wants to own nothing, but by bravely taking from the possessions of others according to her needs, she steps outside the bounds and laws of dispossessed life. She creates new horizons, and, in doing so opens the lives of others, including the men around her, to new vistas of freedom.
Director’s Profile:
Born in 1982 in Hamedan, Hamed Rajabi graduated in Cinema from Tehran University and took part in the 2011 ‘Berlinale Talent Campus’ in Berlin. He began his film directing career making short films and went on to direct his first feature, ‘A Minor Leap Down’, selected at the 2015 Berlinale Panorama, where it won the FIPRESCI award. He was scriptwriter on two feature films directed by Majid Barzegar: RAINY SEASONS (2010) and PARVIZ (2012), both selected at numerous international festivals. PARVIZ had its world premiere at the 2012 San Sebastian IFF, where it won Jury’s Special Mention Award. He was also scriptwriter on DRESSAGE by Pooya Badkoobeh, which won the 2018 Special Mention Award in Generation section at the 68th Berlinale. ROPEWALKER MEMORIES is his second feature film as director.
Feature Films: 2015- A Minor Leap Down; 2023- Ropewalker Memories.
Festivals & Awards:
1- Pune International Film Festival (India – January 2024).
- Global Cinema.
2- Dhaka International Film Festival (Bangladesh – January 2024).
- Cinema of the World.
3- Latur International Film Festival (India – February 2024).
4- Festival Cinéma(s) d’Iran (France – June 2024).
5- Asian Film Festival Barcelona (Spain – November 2024).
- Official Competition.
World Sales:
Sales: mohammad@irimageco.com
Festivals: kamyar@irimageco.com