Iranian director Majid Majidi mentioned he had initially deliberate to say no the Busan Worldwide Movie Competition’s invitation to journey to South Korea to current his newest characteristic movie, Noon meal. A gripping and heartfelt humanist parable, filmed underneath the route of a longtime grasp, the movie has since turn into one of many standout movies within the 2026 competition competitors, with many festival-goers calling it the favourite for the highest prize.
“This journey was very troublesome for me, as a result of I felt very depressed and exhausted, and I actually did not need to depart Iran within the present scenario,” Majidi mentioned in Busan. “However then, considering that perhaps my movie and I might convey some kind of little message from my folks to the folks of different international locations and different locations, I made a decision to come back.”
The director declined to explain how he made the journey from Tehran to South Korea. His go to comes towards a backdrop of the American naval blockade of Iranian ports, reimposed in July, and radical sanctions in September focusing on Iranian aviation. As soon as in Busan, nonetheless, he forcefully denounced the civilian deaths and each day hardships brought on by the U.S. marketing campaign towards his nation.
“Many Iranian civilians have been injured and killed throughout this US-imposed conflict. Round 150,000 houses have been broken or destroyed and 156 civilians, together with 120 schoolchildren, have been killed when a main college in Minab was bombed by the US,” he mentioned. “The folks of the world are watching and understanding the fact of what’s proper and what’s incorrect. I additionally need to let you know that the Iranian folks is not going to bow their heads within the face of this oppression. They’re a courageous and noble folks, and so they need to present that America shouldn’t pressure different nations underneath its management.”
A U.N. fact-finding mission mentioned in September that it had cheap grounds to consider that U.S. forces have been liable for the assault on the Minab college and that the assault constituted a conflict crime. Donald Trump’s State Division, nonetheless, rejected the credibility of the report.
Majidi has constructed a lot of his profession on telling tales of kids and households dwelling on the margins of society, continuously utilizing non-professional artists to discover poverty and solidarity. His 1997 household drama Youngsters of Heaven grew to become the primary Iranian movie nominated for an Academy Award within the Finest Overseas Language Movie class (now known as the Finest Worldwide Movie class). The colour of paradise (1999) and Baran (2001) received first prize on the Montreal Movie Competition, whereas Youngsters of the Solar competed in Venice in 2020 and earned its younger star Rouhollah Zamani the Marcello Mastroianni Prize.
Majid Majidi
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The director’s final phrases, Noon mealfollows Davoud Soulan (Mohammad Rahimi), a contract instructor in Goorankesh, a poor village in the course of the remoted badlands of the Chabahar area of southeastern Iran. After years of dedication to his college students, Soulan is on the cusp of a greater and safer life. On the finish of the varsity yr, he hopes to turn into a everlasting authorities official, which can permit him to acquire a mortgage to lastly purchase a cushty condo with a working rest room for himself and his ageing mom in a close-by housing property (he has already chosen the condo).
However like so many others dwelling in excessive circumstances, his hopes relaxation on a precarious association. For a lot of kids who attend his college and people from surrounding villages, a free noon meal is the primary motivation for coming to class; and these meals – in addition to the leftovers that kids typically convey residence for his or her hungry households – are funded not by the state however by a rich benefactor. When the person dies in the beginning of the movie and his heirs refuse to proceed the charity, meals cease and kids start to vanish from the classroom. If enrollment plummets, Soulan dangers dropping each his college and the everlasting place he has labored for for years.
Thus begins a gripping, unscripted race to maintain the varsity open in any respect prices, with ethical ironies at each flip. Soulan strikes to highschool together with his mom, decided to spend his meager financial savings to feed the youngsters and put together meals himself. However as neighboring colleges shut, an increasing number of hungry college students flock to his class. Does he feed them or ship them away to protect the delicate association that might lastly safe his personal future?
To scrape collectively extra money for meals, he resorts to cross-border gas smuggling – an unlawful job, however one of many few methods out there to make a fast buck. Harsher trials and deeper, parable-like ironies ensue, as his need to serve the youngsters turns into more and more troublesome to separate from his willpower to avoid wasting himself.
Majidi and cinematographer Houman Behmanesh seize a lot of the drama with a hovering digital camera, typically inserting their protagonist within the area’s rugged, otherworldly panorama, as if observing its all-too-human hardships by way of the attention of an emotionless, barely unhappy god. The movie regularly takes on the standard of an enigmatic existentialist parable.
The eroded geological rock formations of the Chabahar area are sometimes known as the “Martian Mountains” of Iran. Majidi mentioned the movie’s cinematography, which options many aerial pictures taken by drones, was immediately impressed by the panorama.
“Once we have been scouting, I used to be amazed by the unusual look of the world,” the director defined in Busan. “I felt that the solidity and solitude of this man could be way more seen within the midst of this wealthy and particular pure magnificence.”
He added: “So I made a decision to go up [with a drone] then ponder the individuals who dwell in these excessive mountains, discovering them first from above.
Majidi mentioned his uncommon casting course of might be extra necessary to his work than filming places. For Noon mealhe mentioned, each face on display screen belongs to a non-professional actor – an extraordinary individual discovered by way of cautious avenue casting within the area the place the movie is about.
“I’ve the best respect for skilled actors, however I really feel like they repeat themselves all through movies, and that is not my technique,” he defined. “What I do is search for an actual one who most carefully matches the character I take into account. Possibly generally it takes months, however as soon as I discover the appropriate individual, the remainder of my work flows very simply.”
The outcomes are remarkably profitable. Rahimi offers Soulan a cautious, tightly contained depth, permitting his compassion, delight, and rising panic to overlap with out making his motivations clear. Reverse him, his mom (performed with astonishing subtlety and charm by his compatriot Kheyri Zakeri) turns into the deeply transferring ethical heart of the movie. His computerized drive to feed others turns into a painful counterpoint to his son’s more and more determined calculations about who he can afford to assist — and when the ends justify the means.
Majidi mentioned he designed Noon meal lengthy earlier than america and Israel started their conflict towards Iran in February, however he believes the movie’s resonance has solely grown because the battle has deepened the hardships confronted by his nation’s most weak residents.
“The issue I am describing in a college – kids who do not even have entry to meals – is immediately linked to the worldwide sanctions we’ve got confronted in Iran for 48 years. Now there’s the blockade, and we won’t even get medication into the nation, so many sick kids are struggling. These actions are most felt by extraordinary Iranians who simply need to dwell in peace.”
He added: “The superpowers like to speak about human rights, however are they now frightened in regards to the destiny of people that endure for no motive?