The Seed of the Sacred Fig: set during the protests and violent reprisals in Iran in 2022, Mohammad Rasoulof’s powerful film uses the microcosm of a single family to look into the episode. The father is a newly designated judge, perhaps struggling with some of the undue pressure he suffers; the stay-at-home mother tries to balance his new job with the desires of her two young daughters, clearly distressed by what is happening in their country, one where the state tries hard to keep them down. That they finally understand that their father is a cog in the repression machinery is, obviously, a new source of unrest. The film loses a bit of its footing in the last third, even if it could be seen as a metaphor for the country as a whole.

The acting is excellent: Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki as the two strong and independent-minded daughters; Soheila Golestani as the devout but above all worried mother; and Missagh Zareh as the hard-working, dedicated judge but distant father. Cinematographer Pooyan Aghababaei captures it all with dynamic and expressive camerawork. Editor Andrew Bird keeps the film moving with pulsating energy, mixing real footage from the protests and crackdowns, which gives it more context, power, and heightened stakes.