The Locust

A film within a film, a comedy and a drama, a feature and a documentary combined. The second directorial effort from Kiarostami’s pupil Faeze Azizkhani is all of these and more besides. Two women – a director and a screenwriter – are putting together a film which is highly personal for both of them, albeit a process which arouses the animosity of their families and a society that favours men; the women’s creative endeavour is a scourge for everyone concerned. Every single word in the written screenplay is the subject of discussion, while the scene of the pre-shoot preparations becomes a battlefield of aggression blurring the boundary between reality and fiction. Yet it is this conflict that provides fertile ground for the director’s authentic female perspective. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)