Divine Comedy
(کمدی الهی)
Ali Asgari
Sat in the socius of his producer's (Sadaf Asgari) motorbike, director Bahram (Bahram Ark) drives through the streets of Teheran to attend his appointments. The 40-year-old filmmaker's works have been released in International cinemas and screened during festivals - but so far, no film of his has been shown in Iran, Bahram's home country. And so he begins his journey to secure the approval and a cinema for his new film, which is inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. The ministry of culture, however, does not want to approve the film without interference, and a shady producer advises him to just make action films. "Cinema means fantasy, not reality", he says.
The journey is its own reward in this comedy, which director Ali Asgari (Terrestrial Verses) segmented into small vignettes and episodes. Shot long before this year's big protests, the film takes a look at a country in agony, where art is not free and censorship and bureaucracy reign. It is a tilt at windmills, and absurdity informs the film's tone. The humor of this biting satire "derives not from comicality but from the absurdity of oppression", said Asgari.
1 May 2026
18:00 h, Elysee 2 im Festivalzentrum
More information
| Direction | Ali Asgari |
| Country | Iran / Italy / France / Germany / Turkey |
| Production year | 2025 |
| Duration | 96 min |
| Language | Farsi, Azerbaijani |
| Language Version | OV with English and German Subs |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Production | Milad Khosravi, Ali Asgari |
| Production company | Seven Springs Pictures, Taat Films |
| Cast | Bahram Ark, Sadaf Asgari, Bahman Ark |
| Director of Photography | Amin Jafari |
| Script | Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami, Bahram Ark, Bahman Ark |
| Montage | Ehsan Vaseghi |
| Sound | Reza Heidari |
| Music | Hossein Mirzagholi |
| Sound Design | Abdolreza Heydari |
Venice Film Festival 2025, Hamburg Film FEstival 2025
Presented by:
About the director
The Iranian director Ali Asgari, born on 25th July 1982, studied Film in Italy and draws attention with short films, which were screened at many international festivals. His debut feature film Disappearance (2017) was part of the Venice Biennale. In Germany, he became known with his third feature film, the satire Terrestrial Verses (2024), which zeroes in on the absurdities of Iranian everyday life and bureaucratic disputes with biting humour. Like his alter ego in Divine Comedy, Asgari repeatedly struggled with Iranian censorship and bureaucracy.
Press views
"Ultimately, similiarly to the screening that Bahram and Sadaf try to organize, the film radiates raw, spontaneous energy and a mischievous, defiant spirit. It imparts convincingly that art - and laughter - are effective weapons in the fight against oppression." (Screen Daily)
"It is difficult not to see a bit of Woody Allen in the film; Bahram may not resemble Allen visually, but the tone he (and Asgari) strike reminds of Allen's films where the 80-year-old played the lead himself. Bahram's neuroticism and confusion drive the film, and Ark's portrayal is brilliant; he wiggles skillfully through long dialogues in which his character is in a constant state of confusion." (International Cinephile Society)
International Feature Film Program
