This film screened on Thursday 27th August 2015. 

As a depiction of the restrictions on women’s rights in Iran, The Circle represents a bold, vital act of dissent. Made up of interlinked stories with no protagonist, the film opens at hospital where the birth of a girl is met with concern for the in-laws’ reaction. Outside, two women hide from police, fearful they will be penalised for being on the street without a man to accompany them. Later we meet Pari, just released from prison, jailed, we discover, for trying to run away. While the constraints build, so too do the women’s expressions of support for each other, solidarity that, here, reads as an assertion of insubordination

This screening is part of Anger is an Energy: Cinema of Protest, our season throughout August that features films – from a range of time periods and national cultures – that examine how some of cinema’s most creative and daring directors have tackled and responded to sociopolitical dissent.