Opponent (15)
2023 Sweden/Norway Dir. Milad Alami
Payman Maadi (A Separation) gives an electrifying performance as an Iranian refugee in small-town Sweden in the second feature from director Milad Alami. Iman is waiting for a determination on his family’s asylum petition. He claimed political persecution on fleeing Iran, but this isn’t quite the whole story. When a translator suggests that their case might be stronger if Iman, a former Olympic wrestler, returned to the sport to compete for Sweden, he does so. But this decision brings him into conflict with his wife Maryam, his old Iranian teammates, and his personal demons. Director Alami himself immigrated to Sweden from Iran as a child, and the film brings home the tedium, exhaustion and occasional panic afforded by asylum systems, with Iman’s family moving from one tiny flat to another, taking language lessons and meeting with lawyers under threat of deportation. A compelling, tense, simmering and fiercely powerful watch in the Skandi noir tradition. Incidentally – the trailer implies there is a lot of violence but that isn’t the case.
Film notes (paper copies available at the screening)
Tickets are £5 (£1 students and children), available on the door, or you can book in advance with the Buxton Opera House box office
