Mast-del

Mast-del was part of IDFA program in 2023, and withdrawn by the filmmaker. Upon the request of the filmmaker, we publish the following text as received:

"This film was one of 12 to withdraw from participation at IDFA 2023, amongst 28 total withdrawals that included moderators, jury, and others in protest at the festival's damaging denunciation of an action in solidarity with Palestine that took place on the opening night of the festival. At the time, the festival erased all information relating to the films withdrawn in protest from the website. In response to the publication of the Palestine Film Institute's 'Industry Protocol in Times of Genocide' in August 2024, and as a gesture towards transparency, IDFA reinstated the information relating to the withdrawn films in September 2024. No further accountability has been taken.”  - The Palestine Film Institute on behalf of the filmmakers, for the full statement click here

Film Synopsis

The ominous howl of the wind whipping against the windows. The sharp-edged sound of a match being struck. A hand lights a cigarette, abstracted into negative, in shades of blue.

In her short video essay, award-winning Iranian filmmaker Maryam Tafakory creates an intimate inner world that moves between the concrete and the abstract. Two young women lie in bed; one describes how she once met a man in an online chat group for film-lovers. The man worked in a shop that sold banned movies under the counter. Their meeting in the park didn’t go as they had hoped.

The story unfolds in short captions superimposed on a collage of self-filmed material and found footage from old Iranian films. Layer by layer, a moving reflection emerges on a reality that is extremely complex for Iranian women. It’s a reality in which personal freedom and desires no longer exist in public space, but only behind closed doors and in the imagination.