Fireworks Wednesday (چهارشنبه سوری) |
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Theatrical poster
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Directed by | Asghar Farhadi |
Produced by | Jamal Saadatian |
Written by | Asghar Farhadi Mani Haghighi |
Starring |
Hedye Tehrani Taraneh Alidoosti Hamid Farokhnezhad |
Music by | Payman Yazdanian |
Cinematography | Hossein Jafarian |
Edited by | Haideh Safiyari |
Distributed by | Boshra Films Grasshopper Film (United States) |
Release date
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2006 (Iran) March 16, 2016 (United States) |
Language | Persian |
Fireworks Wednesday (Persian: چهارشنبه سوری , Chaharshanbe Suri) is a 2006 Iranian film directed by Asghar Farhadi and co-written by Farhadi and Mani Haghighi. It stars Hedyeh Tehrani, Taraneh Alidousti, and Hamid Farokhnezhad.
Fireworks Wednesday is a portrait of three marriages set against the backdrop of the Persian New Year, Chaharshanbe Suri (Wednesday Feast).
The story begins with Rouhi, a young woman approaching her wedding day, flirting with her fiance as they ride into town together on his motorcycle. To make some money to help pay for the wedding, she secures a temporary job cleaning an apartment in northern Tehran. Upon arriving at the apartment she finds herself in the middle of a heated domestic dispute between Mojdeh and Morteza. Mojdeh suspects that her husband Morteza is cheating on her with the next door neighbor Simin, a woman who set up a beauty salon there after her own marriage broke up.
Over the course of the day, the young woman, the sparring couple, their small son, the wife's sister and her husband, and the beautician engage in a series of exchanges, confrontations, and prevarications as the truth unfolds.
Upon the release at Fajr International Film Festival, the film gained critical acclaim in its home country where it won 3 Crystal Simorgh.
Deborah Young of Variety wrote in her review: "Few Iranian films have tried to realistically depict both the urban middle and lower classes, and fewer still with the complexity of story telling and depth of characterization in Asghar Farhadi's impressive third feature, Fireworks Wednesday... The quality of the production is evident in Hossein Jafarian's fluid cinematography and Hayedeh Safyari's nervous editing. The final scenes are a tour de force in which the bonfire-strewn streets fill with merrymakers and the exploding fireworks look as dangerous as a war, an apt metaphor for the everyday violence in the characters' lives."