Dressage

Home / films / Dressage

Dressage

Golsa, a 16 year old girl from suburb of Tehran, who is motivated primarily by boredom rather than greed, robs a corner shop with her friends. But while sharing the booty they are distressed to realize that they forgot to take the security camera footage. One of them must return to the crime scene to get it.

Director: Pooya Badkoobeh
Writer: Hamed Rajabi
Producer: Rohollah Baradari
Producer: Samira Baradari
Music: Shahab paranj

Play Teaser

Awards

Stars

Negar Moghaddam

Actress

Yasna Mirtahmasb

Actor

Ali Mosaffa

Actor

Shabnam Moghadami

Actress

testimonials

Deborah Young

American writer and journalist - HollywoodReporter

Clear-cut, allegorical and unsettling, Dressage might be viewed as an updated Crime and Punishment in which a 16-year-old girl commits a crime, gets away with it, but then finds she’s lost her moral bearings in the self-centered, materialistic world of her parents and friends. This first feature by Pooya Badkoobeh, who has made a career directing TV commercials, plunges deeply into the muddled, exasperating world of teenagers and never loses faith in its rebellious heroine, even when she goes off the rails and the audience’s favor wavers. It won a well-deserved special mention in Berlin’s Generation 14plus sidebar, but the moral quandary of this DreamLab release has adult appeal, too.

Alissa Simon

Variety Journalist

An ethical tale for a new era, the youth drama “Dressage” powerfully illustrates the consequences of growing social divisions within contemporary Iranian society and indicts a middle and upper class that have lost their moral center. Helmer Pooya Badkoobeh’s debut feature centers on an alienated teen, from a family of modest means, who breaks with her group of wealthier, amoral peers after they all commit a thrill-seeking crime. Bolstered by a special mention in the Generations 14plus section of the 2018 Berlinale, further fest play is a given for this provocative look at power, money, hypocrisy, and the gap between generations.

User Review

A film that’s an allegory for so much more. A metaphor for the role that women are meant to play in society with regards to the truth. As you look back on the film, once you’ve seen it, you’ll notice, if you care to, so much being said about how we as a species in society, deal with truth. And also, why the filmmaker has chosen to tell the story about a girl who’s an accomplice to society in its shallowness and dealing of truth, but hasn’t yet become an adult, which is when she will actually become fully party to society’s hiding of the truth. But being 16,17 she still has a chance to not comply. And be someone else. A show horse is what she won’t allow herself to be. Beautiful. Makes one sit back and think for a while after the film. Thank you. The choice to sticking so close to her throughout the film, visually worked very well.

19 August 2018 | by adityakripalani

Gallery