TEHRAN – The Berlin International Film Festival will screen a film by an Iranian filmmaker in its upcoming 76th edition, slated to be held from February 12 to 22.

“Fruits of Despair” directed and produced by Nima Nassaj is the Iranian film that will participate in the Berlinale 2026, ISNA reported.

Selected for the Forum Expanded section, the short documentary will have its world premiere at the festival.

The 29-minute film is about an Iranian filmmaker who, while making a film about the Israel-Palestine conflict, is suddenly thrust into war himself when Israel attacks Iran. Forced to flee Tehran with his family, he finds fragile shelter in a suburban home. Over 12 tense days, what began as a political essay transforms into a personal diary of survival and exile. 

Through fragments of news, images, and reflection, he confronts questions of freedom, identity, and belonging. When the war ends, he returns to a city both familiar and altered, his film forever changed by the collision of art, politics, and lived experience.

Moreover, “No Good Men,” the latest film of the Iranian-born Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat is set to open the 2026 Berlin Film Festival.

“Shahrbanoo Sadat is one of the most exciting voices in world cinema and ‘No Good Men’ really delivers on the promise of her first two features,” said Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle. “Sadat continues her vital work spotlighting Afghan women’s lives, here bringing romance and touches of humor to a rousingly political story.

“That it is based on real events, and the director risked so much to get this film made, makes ‘No Good Men’ even more meaningful as our Opening Gala of the 76th Berlinale,” she added.

A Germany-France-Norway-Denmark-Afghanistan co-production, the film follows Naru, the only camerawoman at Kabul TV, who is convinced there are no good men in Afghanistan. But when reporter Qodrat takes her on assignment just before the Taliban’s return, sparks fly, and she begins to question her belief.

“Growing up in Afghanistan’s deeply patriarchal society, I believed there were no good men – until I found out another reality exists, and I hope this film offers young women hope and young men an example,” Sadat said.

Sadat was born and grew up in Tehran until she was 12 and then returned with her parents to a remote community in central Afghanistan. She studied documentary filmmaking at the Kabul workshop of Ateliers Varan and began her career working in cinema vérité. 

Sadat previously directed the 2016 feature “Wolf and Sheep” and 2019’s “The Orphanage,” both of which debuted in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, with the former, telling the story of a village much like the one where she grew up, winning the section’s top prize.

Photo: A scene from “Fruits of Despair” by Nima Nassaj

SS/SAB