Atomic Heart (15*) + ScreenTalk with Dr Orkideh Behrouzan

Poetry in Motion: Contemporary Iranian Cinema

,Barbican Cinema 2
Save for later Event saved
On sale date and time
Atomic Heart

A hallucinatory journey through nighttime Tehran, charged with reflexive, sharp-witted dialogue, Atomic Heart reflects on contemporary narratives in all their contradictions, both imagined and lived.

In high spirits after a party, Arineh and Nobahar cruise tipsily through nocturnal, polluted, traffic-jammed Tehran, meeting an array of entertaining characters along the way.

They raucously relive dreams and reflect on urban existence, but after the two young women meet a tall dark stranger, their journey takes a turn into the surreal.

Consolidating his niche of representing Tehran’s upper-middle class urban lives, Ali Ahmadzadeh’s second feature brings together a brilliant cast (including Mohammad Reza Golzar and Taraneh Alidousti) alongside polished craft: deftly crafted, beautifully lensed camerawork by Ashkan Ashkani and sharp, electric dialogue.

Atomic Heart illuminates some of the everyday realities for a young generation of Tehran’s present, its characters playfully debunking their own representation as seen from the outside world.

Cinema Poetry in Motion ScreenTalks More...

Iran 2014 Dir Ali Ahmadzadeh 93 min

The screening will be followed by a ScreenTalk with Orkideh Behrouzan.

Ticket prices

£10.80

Concessions £12

£12.15*

Save 10% when you purchase two or more screenings from the Poetry in Motion programme

*Excludes 60p booking fee
Save for later Event saved
On sale date and time

About the speaker

Orkideh Behrouzan is a physician, medical anthropologist, anthropologist of science and technology, and author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (2016, Stanford University Press). Orkideh currently leads the Beyond Trauma Project alongside Dr Nora Parr, exploring narrations of memory in cultural productions including art, literature, and everyday life.   

Continue our Poetry in Motion season online with MUBI

Simply register for free to watch Mitra Farahani's 'Fifi Howls from Happiness' from Mon 8 April
Watch on MUBI

Barbican Cinema 2