Cause of Death: Unknown

Cause of Death: Unknown (2023)

علت مرگ: نامعلوم

Before dawn, seven passengers are making their way from Shahdad to Kerman on a side road. When one of the passengers is discovered dead, they haven't traveled very far. Instead of finding an ID, an address, or a phone when they search the dead man's body, they discover a lot of cash under his vest.

Date of release
2023-06-13
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (6)
Runtime
1h 44m
Genres
Drama
Director
Ali Zarnegar

Casting

Interesting facts

Cause of Death: Unknown ; is a 2023 Iranian drama road movie written and directed by Ali Zarnegar and produced by Majid Barzegar. Starring Banipal Shoomoon, Alireza Sanifar, and Neda Jebraeili, the film follows seven passengers traveling across Iran’s Lut Desert whose overnight journey is disrupted when one of them dies suddenly, forcing the group into a tense moral dilemma after discovering a hidden sum of money on the body.

Production

Cause of Death: Unknown was written and directed by Ali Zarnegar, marking his feature directorial debut. Zarnegar, born in Tehran in 1983, had previously gained recognition as a poet and screenwriter. He was twice nominated for Best Screenplay at the Fajr Film Festival — first for Wednesday, May 9 (2014) and later for No Date, No Signature (2016), the latter winning multiple international awards including the Best Writing Prize at the Stockholm I…

The film was produced by Majid Barzegar, a leading figure in Iranian independent cinema known for Parviz (2012) and The Rain Falls Where It Will (2020). Barzegar described the screenplay as “exceptionally precise and tightly woven,” noting that its minimal setting allowed for “a rare moral intensity.” The production was handled by Rainy Pictures, with Raft Films overseeing international sales and distribution.

Cinematography was led by Davood Malek-Hosseini, whose stark compositions capture both the vast emptiness of the Lut Desert and the claustrophobic confines of the van. His work won the Best Cinematography Award at the 2023 Shanghai International Film Festival’s Asian New Talent Competition.

According to reports, the film was initially accepted into the 40th Fajr International Film Festival (2022) but was later removed from the lineup by Iranian authorities days before screening, for undisclosed reasons. Zarnegar criticized the decision, stating that “social cinema reflects society” and that silencing filmmakers only deepens public disillusionment.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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