Cesarean Weekend

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The mood in the summer villa in northern Iran, near the Caspian Sea, is exuberant. Milad and Armin gather with friends for a weekend shaped by effortless closeness. The news that Bita is pregnant by Milad adds to the fragility of their relationship. The next morning, the hosts’ fathers arrive, each carrying their own fractures. What unfolds is both confrontation and subtle realignment. Generations drift through the house and its thresholds: childhood/parenthood, proximity/withdrawal, desire/responsibility. The villa as a social score of verbal and physical encounters. Cesarean Weekend resists moral judgment. The sea watches; music takes over where language ends. Rather than issuing a political statement, the film traces a parallel social reality – lives unfolding beyond prescribed roles, bound by affection and shifting forms of masculinity. Shirvani’s method is central to this openness: Without rehearsals and through live direction from behind the camera, he creates a cinema of presence in which control and improvisation coexist. Bodies are exposed to space and duration; skin becomes a surface of experience before meaning settles.

details

  • Runtime

    89 min
  • Country

    Iran
  • Year of Presentation

    2026
  • Year of Production

    2026
  • Director

    Mohammad Shirvani
  • Cast

    Nader Mashayekhi, Peyman Yeganeh, Milad Ahmadzadeh, Armin Shirvani, Bita Jamshidi
  • Production Company

    Alternative Film Lab
  • Berlinale Section

    Forum
  • Berlinale Category

    Feature Film