Two Awards for 'No Date, No Signature' at the Venice Film Festival

The film 'No Date, No Signature' by Vahid Jalilvand won two awards for Best Director and Best Actor at the Horizons competition of the 74th Venice Film Festival. Besides Mr. Jalilvand for directing, Navid Mohammadzadeh also received the Best Actor award for this social film about class status and poverty in today's Iranian society. Jalilvand had previously participated in the Venice Film Festival in 2015 with the film 'Wednesday, 19th of Ordibehesht' and took home the FIPRESCI Prize or the International Critics' Award. This time, he did not return empty-handed from the Horizons section, especially since Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami, whose cinema is not dissimilar to Jalilvand's two feature films, was one of the judges in this section. The film begins with a simple incident: an accident. A forensic doctor collides with a motorcyclist and his family riding on his motorcycle. The family's son appears to have a head injury, but it does not seem serious. The next day, this doctor encounters the corpse of the boy in the forensic morgue, which seems to have died from food poisoning. From here, the story's foundation is formed, presenting strange and complicated conditions. The concept of conscience becomes the main issue of the film, and the question of being human—or 'being animal,' as the creators suggest in dialogues—becomes the film's core issue; whether this doctor could have committed involuntary manslaughter and, due to his profession, could easily conceal everything. However, the film is not limited to the mental struggle of its main character and reaches a remarkable connection with the world around him, ultimately creating a strange and unpredictable conclusion. Although the film recalls Asghar Farhadi's works in terms of theme, execution, and atmosphere, I believe this is not a flaw in itself. Every film naturally builds its own world, and discussing contemporary urban society and the concepts of judgment and conscience inevitably brings Farhadi to mind, but this does not necessarily mean imitation. While there is an increasing wave in Iranian cinema with many films imitating Farhadi, I believe 'No Date, No Signature' establishes its own world and successfully narrates it. We believe in all the characters and their concerns and easily accompany them. A father with guilt and a responsible doctor (with two remarkable performances by Navid Mohammadzadeh and Amir Aghaei) form the two axes of the film from different social classes. However, the filmmaker connects these two characters at one point: honor. The character of the guilty father, despite being from the lowest social class, is not portrayed as a criminal and is merely introduced as a victim of his poverty. Details like his embarrassment when receiving money (and his emphasis on 'Isn't this money too much?') separate him from the usual stereotype of a poor criminal. In fact, the filmmaker (for better or worse, like Farhadi) challenges the audience's initial judgment: we think this man will quickly resort to extorting the doctor, but the film does not pursue such a theme and merely narrates the difficult mental conditions of a man who loses everything and sees himself as guilty. Our doubts about the doctor's honor also create another challenging context, making our stance towards him a central issue. It seems that his 'confession' could cost him his job and all the comforts of his relatively easy life. However, the film creates a strange ending; an ending that appears much more honorable than the audience's speculations, but the filmmaker, in a commendable maneuver, concludes the film with a doubt: we cannot be 100% sure about his honesty in court; this dishonesty could simultaneously display the peak of his honor and challenge the established aspects and meanings of honesty and its functions, envisioning different facets for it.