Iranian director and screenwriter Massoud Bakshi will be joining neimënster in March to work on the script for his next feature film, Norouz. For the first time ever, he will be writing in French rather than his native Farsi.

In his own words, he describes the subject of this new feature film:

“My NOROUZ story describes and apprehends a universal femininity by focusing on Persian art and culture in its most sublime forms.

The story takes place on 21 March, the day of the Iranian New Year.

This is the festival of Norouz, the biggest traditional festival of the Persian peoples, who celebrate the New Year on the first day of spring.
With its Zoroastrian origins, this festival has been celebrated by various communities in West Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Balkans and South Asia for over 3,000 years. It is a cultural festival that also celebrates the renewal of nature, love and purity.

The Persian carpet is also central to this story, adding to its aesthetic and narrative density. The beauty of this traditional Persian art, known the world over, is the result of months, even years, of refined handwork by Iranian women to create designs and motifs that invite reverie and nourish the soul.

These two feminine notions complement each other with the main characters in this script, two Iranian women and a European woman, weaving a supportive friendship as the dramatic events unfold on the night of Nowruz.”