Deutsch: Asghar Farhadi präsentiert als Gast der Viennale 2009 im Stadtkino seinen Film Alles über Elly. English: Asghar Farhadi at the screening of his movie About Elly during the Vienna International Film Festival 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
About Elly (Persian: درباره الی, translit. Darbareye Elly) is a 2009 Iranian film directed by Asghar Farhadi. It is the fourth film by Farhadi. The film is about the relationship among some middle class families in Iran.
Farhadi won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 59th Berlin Film Festival for the film. The film was also nominated for 10 awards at the 27th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran where Farhadi won the Crystal Symorgh for best directing. About Elly was Iran’s official submission for the competition in Foreign Film section at the 82nd Academy Awards. It competed against films such as Bist, Tardid, Bipooli for Iran’s submission in the Academy Awards.
A group of middle-class Iranian friends travel to the shores of the Caspian Sea on a three-day vacation. They are former classmates at the Law faculty in the university. Three couples include Sepideh and her husband Amir who have a little daughter. Shohreh and her husband Peiman who have two children including their little son Arash. Nazi and her husband Manoochehr are the third family. The trip is planned by Sepideh, who brought along her daughter’s kindergarten teacher Elly in order to introduce her to Ahmad, a friend who has come back from Germany for marriage.
They all go to the villa that Sepideh has booked from Tehran, but the rural woman in charge tells them that the owners of the place are coming back tomorrow, so they can’t stay there. The old woman suggests that they stay in a deserted villa that needs a lot of repairs. There is no cellphone reception there and they have to go to the old woman’s house in order to make calls. Sepideh lies to the old woman about the relationship between Elly and Ahmad: she says they’re married and are there for their honey moon.
Elly is a little shy, but she begins to feel attracted to Ahmad, who seems to feel the same way. She calls her mother and lies to her saying that she’s with her co-workers at the sea-side. She wishes to go back to Tehran the following day, as planned. Sepideh does not want her to leave and hides her luggage. In a twist of events, Elly goes missing after one of the mothers asks her to watch the children playing in the water. The group does not know whether Elly drowned or left for Tehran on her own.
- Golshifteh Farahani as Sepideh
- Taraneh Alidoosti as Elly
- Shahab Hosseini as Ahmad
- Mani Haghighi as Amir
- Merila Zarei as Shohreh
- Peiman Ma’adi as Peyman
- Ahmad Mehranfar as Manouchehr
- Rana Azadivar as Nazzie
- Saber Abar as Ali-Reza
Crew
- sound recorder: Hassan Zahedi
- sound mix: Mohammad-Reza Delpak
- sound editor: Reza Narimizadeh
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