Iran / 2020 / Persian / 135 minutes / DCP / Color

Addressing the ghosts of Iran’s troubled past while reflecting on the power of cinema as a storytelling tool, Shahram Mokri’s Careless Crime uses a film within a film to stirring effect. Ostensibly the story of four activists plotting to burn down a cinema is correlated with three soldiers hoping to arrange a screening for a village community. These events all echo the tragic Cinema Rex attack of 1978, when anti-Shah dissidents protesting invasive Western influence set fire to the theatre, killing over 400 viewers. Post-talk (in Cantonese) with guest filmmaker Wong Chun