The Salesman

The Salesman is award-winning writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s (A SEPARATION, THE PAST, ABOUT ELLY, FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY) masterful, intimate and suspenseful new drama. Winner of the Best Actor (Shahab Hosseini) and Best Screenplay (Farhadi) awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film will also screen as a Special Presentation during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.

After their old flat becomes damaged, Emad (Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti), a young couple living in Tehran, are forced to move into a new apartment. Once relocated, however, a sudden eruption of violence linked to the previous tenant of their new home dramatically changes the couple’s life, creating a simmering tension between husband and wife. A master of exposing domestic discord through his multi-layered screenplays, Farhadi’s slow-burning, visceral drama explores the psychology of vengeance and a relationship put under strain while continuing to explore the condition of women in Iran and the male psyche.

Forty-four-year-old Asghar Farhadi was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world by Time in 2012, after his film, A SEPARATION, won the Academy Award® and Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as numerous other awards. THE PAST won the 2013 Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actress Award and the Ecumenical Jury Prize. ABOUT ELLY won the 2012 Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear for Best Director. His next film, starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, will be shot in Spain in 2017. THE SALESMAN is his seventh feature.

“Tense and devastating… Another finely cut gem of neorealist suspense... …the writer-director’s technique is just as assured as before. Every shot is in place, every line leading to an outcome that feels quietly up for grabs…The film is beautifully acted by Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidootsi.”
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“Asghar Farhadi continues his exploration of the dark side of the soul, using a traumatic assault to trigger a husband’s uncontrollable thirst for revenge…the final punches are delivered in a knock-out finale that leaves the viewer tense and breathless.” – Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter

“Farhadi remains a master of pace and tension, slowly upping the stakes in an unsettling narrative fueled by a lingering sense of powerlessness, paranoia and the possibility that you never entirely know the person you love.” – Allan Hunter, Screen International