The Salesman

[projekktor id=’26897′]

Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s new film The Salesman hits Canadian screens this weekend fresh off its Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The picture debuted at Cannes last year where Farhadi won the Best Screenplay award and Shahab Hosseini took home the Best Actor prize. The film also stars Taraneh Alidoosti and Babak Karimi.

After their old flat becomes damaged, Emad (Hosseini) and Rana (Alidoosti), a young couple living in Tehran, are forced to move into a new apartment. Eventually, an incident linked to the previous tenant of their new home dramatically changes the couple’s life.

Farhadi had been making films in other countries like France and Spain before his schedule opened up allowing him to start working on The Salesman back home in Iran. “When the chance to do a film in Iran came up, I started collecting all these scattered notes I’d been taking over the years. Besides that, I’ve always wanted to do a film that takes place in the world of theatre. I did theatre when I was younger, and it meant a lot to me. The story was ideally suited for the theatre milieu. So I started developing a scenario about characters putting on a play.”

The Salesman is rated PG.