Persian Shadows: The Actors of Leila and Her Brothers Split (Trailer)
In Mani Haghighi’s new thriller (Pig), two husbands from Tehran come face to face with their lookalikes.
According to the well-known myth, each of us has a look-alike somewhere on Earth. Only, according to scientists, you only have a one in 1000 billion chance of crossing it. Then imagine the probability that your lookalike is married to your partner’s lookalike. It is already much more intriguing, and it is precisely on this theory that the Iranian director Mani Haghighi (Pig) leaned for his next film.
In The Persian Shadows, which takes place in Tehran, a man and a woman discover by chance that another couple resembles them exactly. Farzaneh (performed by Taraneh Alidoosti), a young driving instructor, sees her husband, Jalal (Navid Mohammadzadeh), entering a woman’s apartment. When she confronts him, he claims he left town for his job. He then decides to visit the building by himself. There he meets a woman who is the spitting image of Farzaneh. Her name is Bita. Stunned, the two compare the family photos: Bita’s husband also looks like Jalal… After the confusion and misunderstanding, a story of love… and manipulation is born.
The two main actors are none other than the actors of Leila and her brothers, presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. In this film nominated for the Césars in the category of best foreign film, they played brothers and sisters. Saeed Roustaee (Tehran law) depicted a woman who decides to start a business with her brothers, in order to save the family which is awash in debt.
The Persian Shadows will be released in theaters on July 19. Trailer :
Leila and Her Brothers: An Explosive Portrait of Iranian Patriarchal Society (review)
