Three Iranian films to open Diaspora Film Festival

The 14th edition of the Diaspora Film Festival in South Korea has been set to screen three Iranian short films in the opening ceremony.

The Iranian lineup for the ceremony include ‘Alone in Tehran’ by Amen Sahraei, ‘Like Friends, Like Deer’ by Malek Eghbali, and ‘Orosi’ (Sash Window) by Mohammad Hormozi.

‘Alone in Tehran’ (2025) is a 15-minute experimental documentary about the 12-day War in Iran.

In June 2025, as Israel bombs Iran, director Amen Sahraei finds herself left alone in an apartment in Tehran. The emergency bag ready at home speaks to a daily life where states of emergency have become the norm. However, the conflict feels as though it will make everything vanish, just as she said. She begins to record with the smartphone in her hand.

The short film is a blend of video diary and impromptu monodrama to witness the psychological isolation, frustration, and yearning for human connection in the midst of war through the most candid tone and grammar.

‘Like Friends, Like Deer’ (2025) is a 13-minute animation that evokes Albert Camus’s ‘The Guest’, a short story from his 1957 collection. It deals with the moral dilemma of a schoolteacher on a high plateau who is assigned to hand over an Arab prisoner during the Algerian War, exploring themes of human frailty and freedom. While the basic framework is similar, the focus is distinctly different. Whereas Camus poses questions by drawing on real-life events, ‘Like Friend, Like Deer’ introduces a being with the face of a deer to reveal the absurd triangle between humanity and nature, humans and institutions, and institutions and nature in a fantastic and surreal manner.

‘Orosi’ (2025) is a 15-minute joint production of Iran and Spain. It is about a female musician, apprehended by police while attempting to cross the border, who finds herself perched upon just such a threshold. In this state of suspended movement, instead of pushing outward, she begins to listen slowly to the sensations seeping within. She, perhaps unknowingly, begins to translate her violent reality into the language of art.

The 14th edition of the Diaspora Film Festival will be held in Incheon on May 22-26.