Seven and a Half

Best Film at the 8th International Persian Film Festival (Sydney, 2019) It is the story of seven sisters: Shabaneh, Negar, Nahid, Fereshteh, Niloufar, Rahil and Shekar. Although each one of them lives her own story, their lives are crossed by the impossibility of finding love and building their own destiny, because forced marriage, abuse and gender violence prevent them from doing so.

Navid Mahmoudi was born in Afghanistan, but when he was six years old his family moved to Iran. From a very young age he felt a strong attraction to the seventh art. He began his career as an assistant director, and in 2014 produced his first film A Few Cubic Meters of Love, which was very well received by both: audiences and international critics. In 2016 he directed his first feature film Parting, and in 2018 Rona Azim’s Mother. All three films have been nominated for Oscars. In Seven and a Half, Mahmoudi recovers an episode from his native Afghanistan, in which on the wedding night a bride was killed by the groom when he discovered that she was in fact not a virgin. As a result of this incident, Mahmoudi has always feared weddings because they could end up in mourning.