After an initially successful launch at one of the bigger film festivals, my continuous search for films which easily fall between the cracks keeps leading me to gems which I feel deserve broader and prolonged attention. I’ve selected three among them that I would love to see again, preferably with someone else so that we can draw on each other to walk deeper into the dilemmas and intricacies these films invite us to reflect on.

Ballad of a White Cow is a 2020 Iranian drama, directed by Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha and was shown at the International Film Festival in Berlin in 2021. Maryam Moghadam herself plays the lead role of the woman Mina who is left alone with a seven-year old, deaf daughter when her husband is executed after being sentenced for murder. She does everything she can think of to find justice for her husband. When she gets to hear from the authorities that the execution was indeed a mistake and that the real murderer had come forward, she is not content with a financial settlement, but keeps pressing the issue for a formal apology. Her struggle reveals many of the dilemmas that women face in contemporary Iran.  

When things start to fall apart for her, losing her job, being abandoned by family and losing her housing, a stranger shows up offering her help. He tells her that he owed her husband money he had borrowed. When, step by step, we receive clues of the identity of the stranger and his secret, we are drawn deeply into grief, guilt, justice and revenge. We are witnessing a beautiful piece of acting by Maryam Moghadam.

After Love is a 2020 Bafta-winning feature debut of the British director Aleem Khan. Also this film explores how a woman tries to move on after an unexpected death of her husband. Mary is an English woman who has been married with her teenage love Ahmed for decades, has converted to Islam to be with him, has learned to speak Urdu and makes Pakistani food. The day after his burial she discovers an ID card of a French woman, Genevieve, and love messages on his mobile phone. It appears that the Dover based ferry captain Ahmed had another established family relationship at the other side of the Channel.

When Mary travels to France to confront Genevieve, she changes plans when she is taken by her for a house cleaner. That is how she enters the house and life of the very different Genevieve, a modern single mother, who wonders why the father of her child does not respond to her calls. This becomes the setting for a complex processing of grief and humiliation, and for the search for a new beginning.  

The Gravedigger’s Wife by Khadar Ayderus Ahmed  was shown and awarded at the Toronto Film Festival in 2021. Ahmed is a Finnish-Somali director. His first feature film plays in Djibouti, Africa’s smallest nation, where poverty, unemployment and illiteracy are common. The family he introduces us to consists of Guned, who tries to provide for his family as a gravedigger, his beautiful wife Nasra whom he is devoted to and their 10-year old son Mahad. Nasra is suffering from a kidney infection. Her health is rapidly worsening and she urgently needs surgery. Unable to pay for this surgery, Guned decides to walk through the desert to seek help from his tribal family, of which he is estranged because of his choice to be with Nasra. This is an uplifting family drama in the direst of circumstances, in such a breathtaking, unfamiliar landscape, teaching us about love and perseverance.

September 2022/Rinus

*image posted under fair use of copyright material in recommendation of the film Ballad of the White Cow

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