Those who are forced into exile harbour simple desires, such as holding their parents in their arms again and breathing in their scent. And that’s exactly what Maryam would like to do in Morteza Ahmadvand and Firouzeh Khosrovani’s wonderful film, Past Future Continuous [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], which was presented in competition at the 22nd Giornate degli Autori line-up in Venice. But this isn’t an option for Maryam - she can no longer set foot in Iran, having fled her country and its regime many years ago (it was 1979 and the Islamic Revolution had just triumphed) - so she instals video cameras in her parents’ home: every time she misses them, she simply sits down in front of her computer. They’re in Tehran, she’s in the US, and the distance doesn’t seem too great to begin with. But the guilt she feels at leaving them behind slowly grows and ends up exploding when the internet connection is lost, when the screen goes black or when their rooms turn out to be empty.

The former a documentary director and the latter a video artist, the two Iranian filmmakers (who also penned the screenplay) combine their two approaches to meet midway between reality and fiction, finding an original, poetic, simple and evocative way to reflect with extraordinary intensity upon exile, nostalgia for home and the reality of being far from those we love. We don’t see Maryam, we only hear her voice, while the video-camera’s still images reveal the everyday comings and goings of two enfeebled elderly people who are on their own. In the first instance, the couple dance in front of the cameras to show their daughter they’re ok. Then, over time, they start to forget the fixed gaze of the lens. “I was the present-absent one in their life”, the narrating voice tells us. The house is the fourth protagonist in this movie, wielding its very own voice: it’s the same age as Maryam, it welcomed her when she was born, and it was party to her happiness as a child. Old family footage proves this fact, while other archive images remind us of the Iran-Iraq war which broke out in 1980 and dragged on for the next eight years.

Then there’s the story of the day Maryam left her homeland at a very young age (she wasn’t even twenty years old): “Behind me was my home and, in front of me, darkness”. Encouraged by her loved ones and wrapped in a sheepskin in order to blend into a flock, she crossed the mountainous border between Iran and Turkey and headed for the USA. Once there, she had to swear allegiance to her host country. “But what if war were to break out between Iran and the USA?” – this is another of the painful dilemmas which migrants and refugees face when their identity is divided. But ultimately, it’s the sense of powerlessness and lacerating sorrow felt by those who can’t return home, who can’t care for the people they love or say goodbye to them when they depart this world, that stays with viewers the most, expressed as it is with explosive sensitivity and delicacy.

Past Future Continuous was produced by Fifi Film (Iran), Antipode Films (Norway), Zalab Film (an Italian production and distribution company for independent and socially engaged films, involving Andrea Segre) and RAI Cinema. World sales are entrusted to Taskovski Films.