Khake sar beh mohr (The Sealed Soil)

Marva Nabilis’s long-forgotten feature film was made in 1977 and portrays a young Iranian woman who lives according to the rhythm of daily life in her village, a community near Dezful in the south of the country. Her days are governed by the repetitive patterns of domestic life, until she finally rebels against them, both in her private and public life. The Sealed Soil was Nabilis’s graduation project; as a left-wing film student, she reflects in it—just two years before the Iranian Revolution—on themes such as daily housework, the expulsion of ethnic communities from their homeland under the Pahlavi monarchy, and the veiling of women’s bodies, thereby bringing the silent struggles of resistance to the fore. Although acclaimed by critics at its 1977 premiere in London, the film was never screened in Iran due to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Until its restoration in 2024, The Sealed Soil remained largely unknown internationally. (T.A.)