The biography of the Iranian director and artist Mohammad Rasoulof shows how dangerous it can be to stand up for human rights and freedom of expression. While his regime -critical films such as “But there are no evil” (Golden Bear at the Berlinale) at numerous international festivals and were overwhelmed with film prices, the Iranian authorities and courts acted how autocratic regimes were acting: after various arrests, detention and exit bans, Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison in May 2024. He escaped the punishment, as can be concluded from an Instagram post, by escaping over the snowy mountains towards Turkey (film starts also led a big interview with him last year). In the meantime, Rasoulof lives in exile in Hamburg, where he also completed the work on his Oscar -nominated film “The Sowing of the Holy fig tree”.
So there is a lot of personal experiences with the Mullah regime in its script “Seven days“, Which he offered in July 2023 the Mohammad Farokhmanesh (producer) and Ali Samadi Ahadi (director to Ramallah”), who also emigrated to Germany, and Ali Samadi Ahadi, who then actually filmed it within a few months. The oppressive-realistic drama is based on the life and work of the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, which is also cited in a text blind. “Seven days” benefits from the intensive performance of his leading actress Vishka Asayesh, but at the same time it is not quite possible to carry her conflict completely understandably.
Finally Maryam (Vishka Asayesh) can hug her children back into their arms. But your detention leave ends in a few days …
After six years in prison, the internationally known, human and women's rights activist Maryam (Vishka Asayesh), which is a health attack after a heart attack, is granted seven-day prison for medical treatment by the Iranian regime. Finally she can put her husband Behnam (Majid Bakhtiari), her teenage daughter Dena (Tanaz Molaei) and her ten-year-old son Alborz (Sam Vafa) back into her arms. For this long -long -fought meeting, however, she has to travel to a Turkish border town undetected. Because: Maryam's brother Nima (Sina Parvaneh) hired Schleuser without her knowledge, which you should bring out of the country. But the idealistic Maryam does not even think of fleeing the Iranian regime …
The film had to be shot secretly
Maryam's escape leads her out of Tehran in the trunk of a car. Later it continues in a bus and a jeep to the country, from where you finally cross the snow -rich border mountains to Türkiye on the back of a horse. The film builds up an enormous tension almost casually: With every toilet or tea break of inhospitable transit locations, the fear is noticeable to be recognized under the (too) long eyes of grim beard bearers. Incidentally, the film team of “Seven Days” also exposed itself to this risk:
Although the majority of the recordings were taken in Georgia, some scenes had to be secretly shot on site at original locations in Iran. These production conditions are sometimes reflected in the restless, improvised images of a hand camera, which underline the already oppressive atmosphere. Always close to the protagonist, the audience always suffers with the very present Vishka Asayesh, who embodies Maryam as as strong as it is relentless. With an iron will and against the resistances of a smuggling, it continues tirelessly even in the clinking cold and a merciless snowstorm.
For the audience, it is sometimes as difficult to understand as for her family that Maryam wants to voluntarily return to Iran and thus to prison.
Although Rehisseur Ali Samadi Ahadi most recently delivered a slight meal with the animation adventure “Peterchen's Mondfahrt” or the agent clothing “Die Mamba”, he succeeds in the second half of the film, sometimes somewhat demanding, a painful and intensive analysis of a fragile family. Because despite the fragile restoration of something like everyday life with breakfast together, romping around in the snow and physical intimacy.
Why does Maryam want to go back despite the flight that has already been successfully completed? Why does she want to sacrifice a life with her family in the diaspora to instead lead a privilege -rich struggle for freedom in prison – also under a regime that even refused to say goodbye to her late father? There is no extensive convincing answer to this question in the explanatory attempts provided with phrase -like battle announcements. But that's the only little flaw in a gripping drama about an all -encompassing repression, which can always be felt even without a striking prison scenes.
Conclusion: In the first half, extremely exciting, then an excruciatingly intensive study of the decay of a family: “Seven days” is an oppressive-intensive drama about repression and idealism.