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Critical Zone Mantagheye Bohrani

Ali Ahmadzadeh / Iran, Germany / 2023 / 99 min / Persian

The film was shot in total secrecy, without the permission of the Iranian authorities and using non-actors. It tells the story of one night in a semi-deserted Tehran, populated by lost and suffering souls crushed by the regime that stifles the spirit of revolt. Locarno's 2023 Golden Leopard for Best Film.

cast Amir Pousti, Shirin Abedinirad, Alireza Keymanesh, Maryam Sadeghiyan, Saghar Saharkhiz, Mina Hasanlou, Saba Bagheri, Alireza Rastjou, Maman Pari, Mr. Fred

festivals, awards Locarno 2023

Amir leads a lonely life. With his dog for sole company, he drives through the underworld of Tehran, dealing drugs of all kinds and healing troubled souls like a modern prophet. He navigates the city streets aimlessly, following the directions of his GPS while getting high to escape a town with no future. And yet, on his wanderings he will find the seed of resistance.

“In my new film Critical Zone, I depict everything in the most naked and radical way. I wanted to show that the city is like a big mental institution so sometimes we had to hide the camera. This suspense during production gave the cast and crew a strong feeling of being rebel fighters and I got the most out of the adrenaline in our blood.” (Ali Ahmadzadeh)

What's On

Documentary Film Festival

Peacemaker Mirotvorac

Ivan Ramljak

Monday, 16. 03. 2026 / 17:00 / Main Hall

In 1991, on the outskirts of Tenja, Josip Reihl Kir – the chief of the Osijek Police Department, a man dedicated to negotiations and avoiding war – was assassinated. Peacemaker is a story about the last few months of his life, in the dawn of the bloodthirsty Croatian-Serbian war, which Kir had been trying hard to prevent, told through the statements of a few witnesses and archive materials from the era. Many elements of that assassination still remain unclear.

Fiume o morte! Fiume o morte!

Igor Bezinović

Monday, 16. 03. 2026 / 19:00 / Small Hall

On 12 September 1919, a troop of some three hundred soldiers under the leadership of the flamboyant war-loving Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio swooped into the Northern-Adriatic port town of Fiume, now Rijeka, wanting to annex the city to Italy. Over the course of the next 16 months, during what is regarded as one of the most bizarre militant sieges of all time his official photography team captured over 10,000 images. A century later, Igor Bezinović orchestrates a direct-action history lesson focused on the siege and its modern-day implications.

A Poet Un poeta

Simón Mesa Soto

Monday, 16. 03. 2026 / 20:00 / Main Hall

A film that captures the poetic reality of a neurotic poet, skilfully blending cringe comedy with an emotionally resonant story of lost and rediscovered hope. A singular work with an unforgettable central character.