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Sony Pictures has debuted the trailer for the upcoming comedy ‘The Persian Version,’ which won both the Audience Award and the Best Screenplay Award at this years Sundance Film Festival.

Coming from two countries at odds with each other, Iranian-American Leila (Layla Mohammadi) strives to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures, while boldly challenging the labels society is so quick to project upon her. When her family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant, Leila navigates her relationships from arms length to keep her “real” life separate from her family life. However, when her secret is unceremoniously revealed, so are the distinct parallels between her life and that of her mother Shireen (Niousha Noor).

The story delivers an honest portrayal of a woman who remains unapologetically herself, blended seamlessly into a heartfelt story about family, belonging, and the undeniable influence of pop music.

Written and directed by Maryam Keshavarz,...

An Iranian American woman navigating culture clash, an Argentine bank heist and an animated ghost story voiced by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie debut this weekend with a handful of docs and some notable expansion, vying with Apple wide release Killers Of The Flower Moon.

Sony Pictures Classics The Persian Version opens on eight screens in NY, LA, Toronto and Vancouver today. The film by writer-director Maryam Keshavarz won both the Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance where it premiered (Deadline review here). Her previous film Circumstance, about two teenage Iranian girls who fall in love, won the Audience Award too, in 2011, but the filmmaker hasn’t been able to return to Iran since.

The Persian Version stars Layla Mohammadi as Leila, Iranian-American like Keshavarz, and bisexual, striving to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures. When her family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant,...

Editors note: This review was originally published after its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It hits theaters Friday via Sony Pictures Classics.

The Persian Version, directed and written by Maryam Keshavarz, stars Layla Mohammadi and Niousha Noor as a mother and daughter at odds with one another.

The Persian Version starts with Lelia (Mohammadi) at a costume party in a self-made Burkini. This is where she meets Maximillian (Tom Byrne), a Broadway actor-singer dressed as Hedwig, and they have sex. When she wakes up the next morning, she starts with voice-over about her Persian upbringing, and Iran’s relationship with the United States. She details how she grew up in Brooklyn, but her parents are from Iran, and the country forbid everything with American influence, thought on her childhood trips back to the country, she smuggled Cyndi Lauper cassettes (cut to a young Lelia dancing with her mother...

"The Persian Version" tells the story of a mother and daughter, celebrating Iranian-American culture and exploring familial dysfunction through fresh eyes. The movie's fearless narrator, Layla Mohammadi, brings a buoyant energy to the story, despite the fractured bonds between her and her Iranian immigrant parents. The strength of the film lies in its empowering portrayal of three generations of Iranian women, although some may find that the growth of the daughter's character feels truncated compared to her mother's.

Filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz dips a toe into her own history in The Persian Version, which is finally seeing a limited theatrical release after its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Audience Award for the US Dramatic Competition there, and for good reason. The movie weaves a mother and daughter's parallel narratives together with ease, celebrating Iranian-American culture through fresh eyes and exploring familial dysfunction from a place of love.

A rebellious Iranian-American woman clashes with her strict and unforgiving mother but comes to understand they are very much alike. The Persian Version, winner of the Audience and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Awards at this year's Sundance Film Festival, uses fantasy elements and highly stylized filmmaking techniques to tell a powerful narrative. It is a clash of culture, values, and identity for immigrants trying to find their place in two vastly different countries over several decades. The bells and whistles gimmicks, meant to add a humorous element, grows somewhat tedious. The message delivered does not. Sacrifice and hardships don't last but love and compassion always do.

In present day New York City, Leila Jamshidpour (Layla Mohammadi) bedazzles a burka's headdress with sequins. She then dons a skimpy bikini, grabs a surfboard, and stridently walks to a costume party as jaws drop around her. Punk music blares as the revelers congratulate her on a bold look.

“The Persian Version” captures the split between two worlds in a coming-of-age drama, complete with dance numbers and top pop hits.

The film, written and directed by Maryam Keshavarz, debuted at 2023 Sundance, where it won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

Layla Mohammadi stars as an Iran-American woman who tries to find balance in her opposing cultures. Yet things become more complicated with her family travels from Iran to New York City and her family and friends collide.

Per the official synopsis, when her family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant, Leila navigates her relationships from arm’s length in an effort to keep her “real” life separate from her family life. However, when her secret is unceremoniously revealed, so are the distinct parallels between her life and that of her mother Shireen (Niousha Noor).

The film also stars Kamand Shafieisabet,...

"We were the All-American family." Sony Pictures Classics has revealed the full official trailer for the indie comedy The Persian Version, made by Iranian-American filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz. Winning both the Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, writer / director / producer Maryam Keshavarz delivers a universal and timely story of the Iranian and the Iranian-American experience. When a large Iranian-American family gathers, a family secret is uncovered that catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past, and to discover they are more alike than they know. The film stars Layla Mohammadi, Niousha Noor, Bella Warda, Kamand Shafieisabet, Bijan Daneshmand, Chiara Stella, and Shervin Alenabi. This earned rave reviews at the festival, and also played at the Munich Film Festival. Set for release starting in October this fall. This is a super spunky, upbeat trailer with some great footage.

"It's so much easier blaming our mothers." Sony Pictures Classics has unveiled a first look teaser trailer for an indie comedy titled The Persian Version, made by Iranian-American filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz. I keep getting this film confused with Persian Lessons, a completely different German film about WWII, while this is a modern familial comedy set in New York City. Winning both the Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, writer / director / producer Maryam Keshavarz delivers a universal and timely story of the Iranian and the Iranian-American experience. When a large Iranian-American family gathers, a family secret is uncovered that catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past, and to discover they are more alike than they know. The film stars Layla Mohammadi, Niousha Noor, Kamand Shafieisabet, Bijan Daneshmand, Bella Warda, Chiara Stella, Shervin Alenabi.

Maryam Keshavarz’s semi-autobiographical feature The Persian Version is an energetic family comedy chronicling three generations of Iranian women in the US. An often hilarious and spirited film with a deceptively complicated plot structure, it unpacks family secrets that ultimately inform the present. The only sister in her large family of successful brothers, Leila (Layla Mohammadi) has never quite fit in, opting to take the creative route. Living in Brooklyn, she’s just broken up with her girlfriend and, at a costume party, randomly hooks up with Max (Tom Byrne), who is playing Hedwig on Broadway. The hook-up leads to motherhood, setting Leila down a path of discovery when a family secret is hinted at by her grandma Mamanjoon (Bella Warda).

Spending time in both New Jersey and Iran, Leila has never found a sense of identity, which naturally forces her to become a writer and filmmaker. She’s Western and independent,...

Sony Pictures Classics has nabbed the North American rights to the Sundance award-winning film The Persian Version, a mother-daughter dramedy written, directed and produced by Maryam Keshavarz.

The film’s critical acclaim at Sundance, where it earned the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in the same sidebar, brought buyer attention to the film and a subsequent bidding war where Sony Pictures Classics prevailed.

Keshavarz’s film about Iranian immigrants in New York and New Jersey feeling neither at home in America or Iran stars Layla Mohammadi, Niousha Noor, Kamand Shafieisabet, Bijan Daneshmand, Bella Warda, Chiara Stella, Tom Byrne and Shervin Alenabi.

The film centers on Iranian-American Leila, played by Mohammadi, who comes from two countries at odds with each other, and strives to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures, while boldly challenging the labels society is so quick to project upon her.

Sony Pictures Releasing International to release the film internationally.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American distribution rights to Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version, which won two awards on its debut at Sundance Film Festival last month.

SPC will release the film in partnership with Sony production label Stage 6 Films. Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute the film internationally.

The third feature from US filmmaker Keshavarz, The Persian Version won the US Dramatic Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance last month.

The film centres on an Iranian-American woman who strives to find balance between her opposing cultures,...

Sundance hit “The Persian Version” is going to Sony Pictures Classics. The distributor has landed North American rights to the film in a competitive situation, SPC announced on Friday, adding the winner of the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category to its slate. The film also picked up the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (U.S. Dramatic Competition) at the 2023 festival.

Written, directed and produced by Maryam Keshavarz, “The Persian Version” follows an Iranian-American girl named Leila who struggles to balance her opposing cultures while visiting New York City for her father’s heart transplant.

“After two plus years of watching everything at home and in our PJs, I am excited to bring ‘The Persian Version’ to theaters where we can experience the joy and humor of this big rowdy immigrant American family together in a communal setting,” Keshavarz said in a statement. “Having grown up watching and loving SPC films,...

Sundance has been over for a week, but the market for many of the films that premiered at the festival is still chugging along.

On Friday, Sony Pictures Classics announced that it landed North American rights to the Sundance award-winning film “The Persian Version.” The film was written, directed and produced by Maryam Keshavarz and went on to win the Audience Award and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award after debuting in Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic Competition category.

It’s the second deal out of the festival for Sony Pictures Classics, which also bought the family drama “A Little Prayer.”

“The Persian Version” was produced by Keshavarz for Marakesh Films, Anne Carey for Archer Gray Productions, Ben Howe and Luca Borghese for Agx, and Peter Block and Cory Neal for A Bigger Boat. It stars Layla Mohammadi, Niousha Noor, Kamand Shafieisabet, Bijan Daneshmand, Bella Warda, Chiara Stella, Tom Byrne and Shervin Alenabi.

Sony Pictures Classics has taken North American on Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version which won the Audience Award (U.S. Dramatic Competition) and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (U.S. Dramatic Competition) at this year’s Sundance. Keshavarz is the first filmmaker to have two films win the Sundance Audience Award in the Dramatic Competition category.

Logline: Coming from two countries at odds with each other, Iranian-American Leila (Layla Mohammadi) strives to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures, while boldly challenging the labels society is so quick to project upon her. When her family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant, Leila navigates her relationships from arm’s length in an effort to keep her “real” life separate from her family life. However, when her secret is unceremoniously revealed, so are the distinct parallels between her life and that of her mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor...

Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley in ‘A Thousand and One’ (Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute / Photo by Focus Features)

The Sundance Film Festival named A Thousand and One from writer/director A.V. Rockwell the winner of the prestigious U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic. Directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s The Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2023 festival which hosted in-person screenings as well as access online.

“This year’s Festival has been an extraordinary experience,” said Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO. “The artists that comprise the 2023 Sundance Film Festival have demonstrated a sense of urgency and dedication to excellence in independent film. Today’s award winners highlight our programs’ most impressive achievements in the current moment of cinematic arts. I hope you will join me in congratulating our winners, as well as thanking all artists across sections...

Returning to Sundance, where her debut feature Circumstance premiered in 2011, Iranian-American writer-director Maryam Keshavarz enters the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition with a crowd-pleasing quasi-autobiographical comedy-drama, The Persian Version.

A multi-generational family tale that spans roughly 60 years, two continents and assorted cultures from traditional Muslim families to queer New Yorkers, this lively, likable, if somewhat on-the-nose work grabs viewer attention with fourth-wall-breaking monologues, jocular explanatory graphics, and tightly choreographed dance numbers to vintage American and Iranian pop songs. The expansive ensemble is led by Layla Mohammadi playing the director’s alter ego Leila and Niousha Noor as her immigrant mother Shirin, who, in the manner of classic melodrama, clash but learn to respect one another by the end after secrets are revealed in extended flashbacks.

The film’s present tense is somewhere in the early 2000s, its locus Brooklyn, downtown Manhattan and Jersey City, where protagonist and sometime narrator...

With her tart direct address, Leila makes a cheeky protagonist in “The Persian Version,” a Sundance-blessed dramatic comedy about the wide rift between an immigrant mother and her Iranian American daughter. Layla Mohammadi and Niousha Noor portray Leila and her mother, Shirin. They also carry the weight of writer-director Maryam Kesharvarz’s third feature, which braids comedy and tragedy, vibrant aplomb and thoughtful soberness.

In 2011, Kesharvarz made her directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with “Circumstance,” winner of that year’s audience award for dramatic feature. Set in Tehran, that LGBTQ-hued film focused on a well-to-do Iranian family dealing with their sexually rebellious daughter (and Daddy’s girl) and a son who recovers from drug addiction by replacing it with a fresh mania for fundamentalist ideology. “The Persian Version” moves between the present and the past and shuttles from New York to New Jersey to a rural outpost in Iran,...

For the last few years, Sundance has had a strong record for premiering Asian titles that would overtake the film festival circuit. Asian diaspora and titles from Asia alike dominated the slate last year, with Indian documentary “All That Breathes” taking home the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema Documentary; Christine Choy-starring “The Exiles” walking away with the Grand Jury Prize in US Documentary; and Kogonada’s quiet sci-fi “After Yang” winning the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. Other productions have made a splash on the circuit as well, like the Martika Ramirez Escobar’s stunning debut “Leonor Will Never Die” and Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s well-researched documentary “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The successes of the previous years have ramped up our own excitement for what is to come in 2023 — which will be, for the first time in the last 2 years, premiere in-person,...

The Sundance Institute has released its lineup for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The annual festival will take place January 19-29 in Park City, Utah and will feature the “upcoming year’s most impactful independent stories.”

To kick off the event, IMDb will present “Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance” to raise funds for the organization, in addition to “Day One Features” which will show 11 features and a short film program. Over the course of the festival, the Institute will show 101 feature films which were selected from over 15,000 submissions, both from the U.S. and internationally. The films fall into a number of categories.

Tickets for the festival can be purchased here.

Here is the lineup for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, as announced by The Sundance Institute:

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Presenting 12 world premieres of fiction feature films, the Dramatic Competition offers audiences a first look at groundbreaking new voices in American independent film.

Setting the stage for the year in cinema, the 2023 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 19-29, both in person in Utah as well as virtual viewings kicking off five days into the festival. Ahead of next month’s festivities, the festival has now unveiled its features lineup, which features 99 films.

Initial highlights of the lineup include Ira Sachs’ Passages, starring Franz Rogowski, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Ben Whishaw, William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth follow-up Eileen, Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, produced by Barry Jenkins, Bad Behaviour, the directorial debut of Jane Campion’s daughter Alice Englert, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth, Nicole Holofcener’s’ You Hurt My Feelings starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and more.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

The 12 films in this section are all world premieres. All 12 will be available to stream online.

The Accidental Getaway Driver (Director and Screenwriter: Sing J. Lee,...

"The days of Entebbe are long over..." An official trailer has debuted for a kidnapping thriller titled Infidel, from American filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh. Inspired by true events, the film was shot on location in the Middle East. An American man, played by Jim Caviezel, is kidnapped after a friend invites him to Cairo to speak out about recent militant uprisings. He is eventually taken to Iran and imprisoned on spying charges. His wife heads to Iran after hearing the news, determined to get him back since the government won't help. This also stars Claudia Karvan, Hal Ozsan, Stelio Savante, and Bijan Daneshmand. An important warning - this film is being released with D'Souza Media, a known extremist and dangerous propagandist who supports xenophobia and hate. It's obviously a true story anyway, but the film may have a hateful side. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Cyrus Nowrasteh's Infidel, direct...