A paranoid family faces Iranian oppression in the trailer for dissident director Mohammad Rasoulof’s thriller The Seed of the Sacred Fig that dropped on Monday.
With the Iranian film shot entirely in secret, the teaser for the dissident Iranian filmmaker’s Cannes Special Jury Prize winner centers on a family thrust into the public eye when its patriarch, Iman (Misagh Zare) is named as an investigating judge in Tehran. As political unrest erupts in the streets, Iman realizes that his job is even more dangerous than expected, leaving him distrustful of even his pious wife Najmeh and teenage daughters Sana and Rezvan.
“What curse has fallen upon me?” a whispering Iman asks at one point in the trailer that includes car chases, banging at the family’s front door and a loaded gun to protect against a possible home invasion.
The horror movie tropes around The Seed of the Sacred Fig underscore a corrupt Iranian judicial system Amin has to navigate, and echoes of the real life youth protest movement in late 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for refusing to wear a hijab.
Rasoulof had to flee an eight year prison sentence he faced in Iran only weeks before his feature debuted in competition in Cannes. Germany picked The Seed of the Sacred Fig to represent the country at the 2025 Oscars in the best international feature category because Rasoulof is now a German resident in Berlin.
Neon nabbed the North American rights for the film and plans a limited theatrical release in Nov. 2024. The Seed of the Sacred Fig also stars Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi, Reza Akhlaghi, Shiva Ordooei and Amineh Arani.