85 mins | Denmark, United States, Iran | 2025
AN EYE FOR AN EYE Documentary
Directors: Tanaz Eshaghian, Farzad Jafari
Producers: Christoph Jörg, Katayoun Arsanjani, Joey Marra
Language: Farsi
Kinetically charged edge-of-the-seat thriller. Has the fictional aesthetics of regular fiction feature film. It doesn’t bend the truth, rather, it’s enhancing, generating empathy and sympathy for characters. Audience members can experience, as this reviewer did, empathy-sympathy for characters they at first might have loathed. And there are surprises. That’s how great the filmmaking story telling is!
Tahereh, an Iranian wife, kills her abusive husband after years of brutal domestic violence. She serves 14 years in prison before being released on a parole, yet, she faces the possibility of being executed unless she or her family can come up with $30,000 in blood money, a reparative payment under Sharia law.*** The tense sometimes tense negotiations with her late husband’s family, especially brother-in-law Bashir, is at the heart of this superb edge-of-the-seat thriller.
*** Sharia law, in Islam, is a comprehensive set of religious laws and principles derived from the Quran and the Sunnah (the teachings and practices of the Prophet Muhammad). It encompasses legal, moral, and ethical directives, guiding Muslims on various aspects of life, from personal conduct to social interactions. Sharia is not a static, codified system but rather a framework that requires interpretation and application by Islamic scholars and jurists.
Justice Rosalie Abella, Canadian Supreme Court Judge (Retired): “Violence against women is not a women’s issue. It is a profound and persistent human rights violation.” Bell Hooks, Cultural critic and author “The family is often the primary site of violence… and yet the ideology of the family as nurturing masks these realities.