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Documentary Time

HIGHER THAN ACIDIC CLOUDS

• Director: Ali Asgari
• IRAN, LUXEMBOURG / 2024 / DCP / B&W / 71’ / Persian; Turkish, English s.t.

• Screenplay: Ali Asgari, Ali Shams
• Director of Photography: Arman Fayaz
• Editing: Ehsan Vaseghi
• Music: Navid Divan
• Producer: Ali Asgari, Milad Khosravi
• Production Co.: Taat Films, Seven Springs Pictures
• World Sales: Seven Springs Pictures

2024 IDFA Best Documentary–Envision
2024 Torino Special Mention

In a haunting, autobiographical essay, Iranian filmmaker Ali Asgari questions what it means to be an artist, as censorship drains the colour from his home city of Tehran, and from his life. After the premiere of his film Terrestrial Verses (co-directed by Alireza Khatami) at Cannes, Ali Asgari was banned from traveling by the Iranian authorities. At the beginning of Higher Than Acidic Clouds, we see mysterious men intrude upon the quiet of the filmmaker’s home in Teheran, interrogating him and searching his apartment. They take away hard drives full of material that Asgari has filmed an acidic smog cloud hanging above the polluted city. He is left with his memories, the only thing that cannot be confiscated. In stubborn resistance to his growing pessimism about the way his city is developing, Asgari shows his dreams and reflections in countless apocalyptic shades of grey.

* In accordance with Article 7 of the Law No. 5224 amended on 18.01.2019, cinema films that have not been reviewed and classified can only be screened in festivals, special screenings and similar cultural and artistic events with an 18+ age restriction.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.