One of 2018’s first notable debuts, Ava concerns a young girl’s coming-of-age via rebellion — a not-unfamiliar idea that writer-director Sadaf Foroughi makes unusually crucial by placing the story in the strict environment of contemporary Tehran, transforming normal concerns into a high-stakes battle between the self and the system. After nabbing the Discovery Award and Best First Feature prize at last year’s TIFF and this year’s Canadian Screen Awards, respectively, as well as a slot in this year’s New Directors/New Films, it’s headed towards theatrical release.
Thus, naturally, we have a trailer. Ava is perhaps too complex for a quick breakdown, but much — from Foroughi’s rigid, perspective-obsessed formal choices to the roiling narrative tensions to Mahour Jabbari’s breakout performance — comes through herein. Either way, keep your eye out; as we said in our review, “Sadaf Foroughi’s fulminating debut feature, Ava, may strike a few chords among Persepolis enthusiasts. A role-model schoolgirl turned rebel, its eponymous teenage girl is a rollicking blend between Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s black-and-white punk teen and The 400 Blows‘ Antoine Doinel – a heroine fighting to reassert her freedom in the face of an ultra-conservative environment. Tehran-born, Montreal-based writer-director Foroughi draws from her childhood memories to conjure up a gripping coming-of-age story where the claustrophobic relationship between an overprotective mother and her teenage daughter acts as a synecdoche to expose a patriarchal society eager to chastise whatever falls outside its rigidly policed norms.”
Watch the trailer and find the poster (both with our quote) below:
Based on her own adolescent experiences, Sadaf Foroughi’s Ava is a gripping debut about a young girl’s coming-of-age in a strict, traditional society. Living with her well-to-do parents in Tehran, Ava is a bright and focused teen whose concerns — friendships, music, social status, academic performance — resemble that of nearly any teenager. When Ava’s mistrustful and overprotective mother questions her relationship with a boy — going so far as to visit a gynecologist — Ava is overwhelmed by a newfound rage. Formerly a model student, Ava begins to rebel against the strictures imposed by her parents, her school, and the society at large.
Ava opens on April 27 at New York’s Quad Cinema.