Pegah Ahangarani, an Iranian actor who went into exile, reconstructs Iran’s history after the 1979 revolution through the stories of five people: her father, a literature teacher, an uncle, a friend, and a daughter. From Super 8 mm and 16 mm family movies, photographs, newspapers, and tape recordings to mobile phones and YouTube videos, records from different eras meet personal memories and transform into a record of resistance, restoring a history of violence erased by the state. The film sees the older generation’s despair not simply as defeat but as memories to be passed down to the daughter’s generation and as a ‘rehearsal’ for the next resistance. The first-person narration, which covers Iran’s vast modern history, at times compresses the characters’ complex thoughts and feelings too much, but the director’s refusal to hide her helplessness, when even images of Iran’s worsening reality are inaccessible due to internet shutdowns, resonates deeply. A much-discussed film at this year’s Cannes, it shows how remembering and recording can themselves become acts of resistance.
An Iranian-born actor and documentary filmmaker. After gaining recognition for her performance in The Girl in the Sneakers (1999), she went on to appear in more than 40 films over a career spanning three decades. She later expanded her work into documentary filmmaking, directing the short essay films I Am Trying to Remember (2021) and My Father (2023), as well as Child Soldier (2024) and Taraneh (2025), both presented by the BBC. Rehearsals for a Revolution, winner of L’Oeil d’Or at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, is her feature directorial debut.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
