Razor’s Edge: The Legacy of Iranian Actresses

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Special Events

  • Sat Feb 1 : 

    Q&A with dir. Bahman Maghsoudlou after the 2:00 p.m. show

    Buy Tickets

SHOWTIMES AT IFC CENTER

Followed by a Q&A with director Bahman Maghsoudlou

The culture and art of Iran, like those of nations throughout history, have always been inextricably tied to its societal

problems, including its attitudes and treatment of women. Its cinema was not an exception. In a traditional, religious

and male-dominated society, actresses dared to assert themselves within the relatively new art form, sacrificing to

force acceptance of their presence in the cinema and subsequently bring modernity to the culture.

This documentary

approaches its subject on four levels: the biographical, the historical, the socio-political and the theoretical. Through

interviews with many leading actresses of the time and unprecedented access to rare film clips of their work,

filmmaker Bahman Maghsoudlou sheds a light on the important and controversial role women played in the

development of Iranian cinema during the secular period from the 1930s right up to the Islamic revolution of 1979,

examining the evolution of women’s roles, the difficulty of making films that broke from the patriarchal mode and

the darkness that descended upon the arts when a new fanaticism began to take hold of the nation.

Screening as part of Iranian Film Festival New York 2025

See more and save! Get an Iranian Film Fest New York 2025 Ticket Pack ($42 for IFC Center members and $53 for non-members). Ticket packs are good for any three shows in the festival.

  • Country USA, France, Iran, Sweden, UK
  • Language Persian with English subtitles
  • Year 2016
  • Running Time 107 minutes
  • Format DCP
  • Director Bahman Maghsoudlou
  • Cast Shohreh Aghdashloo, Katayun Amir Ebrahimi, Mary Apick, Pouri Baneai, Bahram Beyzaie
  • Accessibility Assistive Listening, T-Coil

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.