Hedieh Tehrani in "Orange Days."courtesy Boston Festival of Films from Iran

The Boston Globe

What better time to be reminded of Iran’s legacy of bringing groundbreaking films to the rest of the world? Film curators from the Museum of Fine Arts; the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston have again curated a festival that celebrates many genres and perspectives in contemporary Iranian cinema. Running Jan. 16-26, the Boston Festival of Films from Iran opens with writer-director Soheil Beiraghi’s drama “Cold Sweat.” The film, which also screens Jan. 19, blends sports drama and social commentary in its story of Afrooz (Baran Kosari), a star athlete with Iran’s national soccer team ready to travel to the Asian Nations Cup final, in Malaysia. But her about-to-be-former husband, Yaser (Amir Jadidi), a TV talk-show host, takes revenge by exercising his legal right and forbids her to leave Iran.

The plight of women in modern Iran also figures in Narges Abyar’s award winner “When the Moon Was Full” (Jan. 17 and 18). Based on true events, the film blends political drama, love story, and horror thriller in its story of Faezeh Mansuri (Elnaz Shakerdoost), a woman from Tehran who marries a man (Hutan Shakiba) who hails from an Iranian province near the Pakistani border. Faezeh soon discovers that her new brother-in-law is a religious extremist determined to recruit her husband into a terrorist group >>>