Festival Predictions

2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Hiner Saleem’s Aga

Published on April 5, 2013

#50. Hiner Saleem’s Aga

Gist: Starring Golshifteh Farahani (she was in his previous 2010 film, Si tu meurs, je te tue!), duel characters share the screen, Baran, a Kurdish independence war hero, is now police commissioner in Erbil, the capital city. No longer feeling useful in this society now at peace, he thinks about quitting the police force, but instead agrees to be stationed in a small valley, at the very borders of Iran, Turkey, and Irak. It is a lawless territory, right at the heart of illegal drug, medication and alcohol trafficking. Having arrived in the small village, he refuses to bow down to Aga Azzi, the seriously corrupt tribal chief and absolute ruler of the area. Baran meets Govend, the village school teacher, who is also rejected by the villagers.

Prediction: Un Certain Regard. Saleem took a trip to Cannes with Main Comp entry Kilometre Zero (2005) and this looks like the sort of tricky material that a politicized festival such as Cannes normally includes in their selection.

Related Topics:2013 Cannes Film Festival, Aga, Hiner Saleem

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).