TEHRAN – The New York Film Festival (NYFF) has announced the 32-film main slate for its 64th edition, anchored by four world premieres, including the new documentary feature from Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi.

Titled “I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies,” this lively, stimulating documentary profiles Nasser Bakhshi, a painter, conceptual artist, collector, and curator, whose monumental archive creates a record of collective memory.

A production of 2026, the 76-minute film the film depicts Bakhshi, alongside his wife Roghayeh Najdi, whose surrealist paintings complement his work by commenting on the place of women in Iranian society. 

In the documentary, Haghighi comes up with a distinct visual language, one that feels in dialogue with filmmakers from Bergman to Parajanov.

Born in 1982 in Tabriz, Nasser Bakhshi is a self-taught artist who lives far from the hustle and bustle of the capital Tehran, in the wonderful land of Azarbaijan. 

Situated in the northwestern city of Tabriz, Bakhshi’s museum-archive speaks to the need for individual stories to paint the larger picture. His collecting process is an artistic act. 

Bakhshi's artistic practice revolves around images related to time, space, and existence. He primarily works with large-scale paintings and painting found objects to express his concerns and fears. Bakhshi's style is characterized by communal imagery that alludes to the turbulences and apprehensions of a nation in a state of flux.

His first verified exhibition was “Mapping Within: An Alternative Guide to Tehran and Beyond” at The Mine in Dubai in 2015, and the most recent exhibition was “The Observer and Archive of Memory” at Bavan Gallery in Tehran in 2025. 

He is most frequently exhibited in Iran, but also had exhibitions in Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere. Bakhshi has held at least six solo shows and 11 group shows over the last 10 years. 

Bakhshi has also been in no less than two art fairs but in no biennials. A notable show was “Dust” at Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw in 2015. Other notable exhibitions were at Frieze London in London and Dastan Gallery in Tehran. 

Among contemporary Iranian filmmakers, Mani Haghighi, 57, stands out for his refusal to conform to easy categorization or genre.

A filmmaker, writer, producer, and actor, Haghighi was educated in Iran and, from the age of 15, at Appleby College in Canada. He took a BA in philosophy at McGill University in Montréal, where he directed plays including Pinter’s “Betrayal” and Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. He then followed postgraduate studies at Guelph and Trent universities. 

Haghighi moved back to Iran in 2001 and worked for several years in advertising, shooting television commercials, educational films and documentaries. His first feature film, “Abadan” (2002). It was the first Iranian independent feature film to be shot with a digital camera. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002.

The comedy “Men at Work” (2006), based on a story idea by Abbas Kiarostami, premiered at the Forum section of the Berlin Film Festival and went on to win several international prizes, including the Asian Film Award for its screenplay.

In 2006, Haghighi and Asghar Farhadi wrote “Fireworks Wednesday,” a domestic social-realist drama that dealt with issues of class and alienation in contemporary Tehran. The film, directed by Farhadi, premiered at the competition section of the Locarno film festival and was awarded the best screenplay prize at the Three Continents Film Festival in Nantes. It won the Golden Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival.

“Canaan” (2007), Haghighi's second writing collaboration with Farhadi, was based on “Post and Beam,” a short story by the Nobel prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro. It marked a departure for Haghighi away from absurdist dark comedy toward a more straightforward narrative of domestic conflict. The film won the audience prize in the international section of Tehran's Fajr Film Festival.

“Modest Reception” (2012), his fourth feature film, was written in collaboration with the theater director Amir Reza Koohestani. Marking a return to Haghighi's preoccupation with absurdism, the film tells the story of two urbanites (played by Haghighi himself and Taraneh Alidoosti) who drive around an unidentified, mountainous and war-torn region, handing out bags of cash to poor villagers in return for increasingly sadistic demands. The film premiered at the Forum section of the Berlin Film Festival and won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) prize.

“A Dragon Arrives!” was shot on location in the Valley of Stars on Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf. The film screened in the competition section of the Berlin Film Festival in 2016.

In 2016, Haghighi made “50 Kilos of Sour Cherries,” a popular romantic comedy that became, in the year of its release, the third-highest-grossing film in the history of Iranian cinema. 

In 2018, Haghighi made “Pig,” a black comedy about the misadventures of a black-listed film director who is falsely accused of the serial murder of his colleagues. It premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival and subsequently won l'Amphore d'Or for Best Film from the Festival International du Film Grolandais, Toulouse.

In September 2022, his latest film “Subtraction” premiered in the Platform section of the Toronto International Film Festival. This new film, a coproduction between France and Iran, deals with a married couple that seems to have found their doppelgängers.

Between 2007 and 2016, Haghighi produced and directed two documentaries about the Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui. The shorter film “Hamoun's Fans” (2008) dealt with the phenomenal success of Mehrjui's classic cult film “Hamoun” (1989). Haghighi published an open call to everyone who considered themselves a fan of the film to write him a one-page explanation of their reasons for loving it. From the hundreds of responses, he chose five people to tell their stories. 

The second film, “Mehrjui: The 40 Year Report” (2015), is an exploration of Mehrjui's entire oeuvre through detailed interviews with Mehrjui himself, as well as his collaborators and critics. The film won the Best Documentary Film Director Award from the Fajr Film Festival.

Presented by Film at Lincoln Center in partnership with Rolex, the New York Film Festival is an annual celebration of the most significant international films of the season. NYFF has played a pivotal role in shaping film culture since its inception in 1963 and continues its enduring tradition of introducing audiences to bold and remarkable works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The 64th edition will take place from September 25 through October 12.

Photo:  A view of Nasser Bakhshi’s museum-archive in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province.

SS/SAB