FILM SCREENINGS

The Neighbor

2010. Canada. Written and directed by Naghmeh Shirkhan. With Azita Sahebjam, Tara Nazemi, Parisa Wahedi. In Vancouver’s Iranian immigrant community, an older woman befriends a young mother whose husband spends more time in Tehran than with his wife and young daughter in Canada. Despite its bare-bones narrative, the film is a rich exploration of foreignness, loneliness, and how women adapt to alien surroundings. Shirkhan, who immigrated to America from Iran at the age of five, transferred the setting of her film from the Iranian expatriate community of Los Angeles to that of Vancouver at the suggestion of the film’s producer, fellow émigré Amir Naderi. In English, Farsi; English subtitles. 108 min.