Head to Head Sar beh Sar

Traditional gender roles are turned on their head in this razor-sharp comedy from debut director Ghasideh Golmakani. Bahar, an acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, returns to her home country to shoot a new project intended to prod the patriarchal authorities and provoke a conversation surrounding gender inequality. For all the women’s roles in the film, she casts male actors and costumes them in headscarves and skirts. Heavily clothed and filming in the hot sun, the performers begin to prickle and complain about their restrictive getups. As an on-set rebellion foments, government censors catch wind of the illegal production, forcing the film team to flee and take their provocative show on the road.

Nestled in Head to Head’s affable tone and winsome film-within-a-film structure is a keen, clear-eyed cultural critique. Interrogating sexism in both Iranian cinema historically and in society at large, writer-director Golmakani expertly grounds cogent cultural analysis in affecting human drama. Head to Head is a poignant, absurd, frustratingly funny work about rebellion and resistance.