TO STAY ALIVE (BEMANI) Asian New Classics

Director Dariush Mehrjoui paints a vivid portrait of a society and culture rarely seen in the West. Within its framework, he creates a world filled with beauty and loss, love and death.

Bemani’s world is thrown into upheaval when, against her wishes, her family forces her to marry an older, wealthier man. Bemani dreams of being a doctor, but when her father tears her out of medical school, where she was secretly studying, she must endure the hardships imposed on her. The world that she encounters is filled with violence and prejudice, and Bemani watches the destruction and hopelessness of her friends who co-exist in an environment overwhelmed by poverty.

The director envisioned this film to be a way in which he could “perhaps draw attention to the fate and ways of life of people in a town, or a region, where social disorientation claims the life of an individual person everyday.”