Interview: Mani Haghighi – Pig | 2018 Berlin Intl. Film Festival

A thematic combination of his two last works A Dragon Arrives! (2016) and 50 Kilos of Sour Cherries (2016), Mani Haghighi‘s latest film follows the “tragic-comedy” structure employing intellectual characteristics of the former and the popular storytelling method of the later. Comparatively, Pig (Khook) is an anomaly in terms of the Iranian cinema output we find at international festivals with its whodunit tale featuring a blacklisted filmmaker (Hasan Majuni) who takes inventory of a killing spree involving his filmmaker contemporaries and then needs to map his own diabolical plan to restore his reputation as he figures out if he is next.

A socially relevant (seventh feature) film that is in constant flux, Pig takes a jab at the irresponsibility found in journalism, the toxicity levels found in social media and the fetishization of celeb culture. Presented in Competition at the 2018 Berlin Intl. Film Festival, I had the chance to sit with Mani Haghighi to discuss topical items such as working with genre film templates, the role of music and costume design within this feature.