Top Commercials Director Mehdi Norowzian Returns To Cinema With Iran-Shot ‘A Time In Eternity’ Starring Leila Hatami

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Iranian-British director and artist Mehdi Norowzian has just wrapped the Iran shoot of his new drama A Time In Eternity starring Venice 2022 jury member Leila Hatami, best known for her roles in A Separation, The Pig and Imagine.The production marks the first feature in two decades for Norowzian, who was Oscar-nominated for his 1999 short film Killing Joe and shortly after directed Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Shue, Dennis Hopper and Sam Shepherd in the drama Leo.In the interim, he built a career as a top commercials director, working closely with Ridley Scott’s RSA Films under the banner of Joy@RSA.Hatami stars as a woman who is on a relentless and potentially futile quest to track down her missing husband.

In the backdrop, the situation puts untold pressure on her relationship with her 12-year-old daughter, while she is also dealing with the unwanted attention of her amorous brother-in-law.Norowzian describes the work as a metaphysical drama bordering on sci-fi that taps into the societal dynamics at play in contemporary Iran.“The sci-fi in the film has nothing to do with spaceships and aliens, its more to do with a different mind space more than anything else, and the mind space takes a real form in the film,” the director told Deadline from Iran.The feature was shot over the course of 87 days entirely in Iran, in locations spanning the capital of Tehran, the UNESCO-listed island of Qeshm in the south of Iran, the ancient central desert town of Varzanehh and Mazandaran, the mountainous region of northern Iran, bordering the Caspian Sea.Norowzian’s London and Dubai-based company Joy Films, run jointly with long-time business partner Desley Gregory, lead finances and produces.A Time In Eternity marks a