A Simple Event

The story of a ten years old Iranian schoolboy living with his mother and his father in Northern coasts of Iran. The boy helps his father in selling the latter’s illegal fishing and helps his mother in shopping for her and bringing home water from a well. The three characters live together in only one room. Their life is austere. The boy eats only bread and milk every day… One day the boy’s mother dies.

Sohrab Shahid Saless, born in 1944 in Tehran, was a groundbreaking Iranian filmmaker known for his minimalist and deeply introspective style. He is best known for his early works A Simple Event (1973) and Still Life (1974), which are considered pivotal in the development of Iranian cinema, emphasizing slow pacing and a focus on the everyday lives of ordinary people. After leaving Iran in the mid-1970s, Shahid Saless continued his career in Germany, where he made several critically acclaimed films that maintained his distinctive narrative style and thematic focus on alienation and the human condition. His work remains influential for its unique approach to storytelling and its exploration of social and existential themes.