Contact :
GRAPES OF WRATH
Written & Directed:Maria Mavati
Producer:Maria Mavati, Maryam Farhang
Director of photography:Mehdi Azadi,Hassan Seyedi Parishan
Editor:Loghman Sokhanvar
Music: Masoud sekhavatdoust
Sound Recorder:Mohammad Khodam
Sound mixer:Arash Ghashemi
Color grading:Hamidreza Fatourechian ,Borna Jamshidi
45:25 mins,2022
SYNOPSIS
The farmland near the wetland of “Wild Boars Lagoon” has not had enough rain in the last few years, however; it has revived the habitat of boars making them thousands of wild animals.
Khosro is a farmer who supports a large family of 10 members. He is trying to motivate other farmers to hunt the boars before the flock of wild boars get out of the wetland and attack his farm, which is his only source of income. Typically, Boars breed in the winter and the female ones get pregnant during this period. This issue prevents Khosro from hunting the boars because it is Haram[1] to kill a pregnant animal.With the beginning of spring, farmers and boars start a battle to take the land, but wild animals are generally stronger than humans so the boars attack the grain, beet and melon fields every night.
Although there are legal and religious bans on killing animals, some farmers sell the boar carcass as an act of compensation. Now, Khosro is faced with a dilemma of choosing between money and morals. He does not know whether to sell the wild boars or to bury them.
DIRECTOR
Maria Mavati is an Iranian Kurdish producer, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker born in 1987 in Oshnaviyeh. He holds a bachelor's degree in directing and a master's degree in dramatic literature in Tehran. The short film "If" is her first activity filmed in the border area of her hometown, which is a village without a bridge, and many children drown in the river.
Her second film, Majeraye Nimrooz, deals with a patriarchal tradition called Khon Bas, which makes women victims of men's mistakes. In 2014, when ISIS attacked the Iraqi Yazidi Kurds, she went to the Sinjar war zone and made her first documentary called "Bazgasht". “Return" is about a mother whose daughters have been enslaved and one of her daughters has escaped from ISIL slavery. She then made another documentary about the war refugees called "Madar", which has won awards at various international festivals. She then focused more on the issue of displacement and asylum and made a documentary about an Iranian refugee in Turkey called "Zaman," the story of a father trying to visit his children in Canada. The documentary has been critically acclaimed and won the Director Award for International Iranian Documentary Film Festival. She then dealt with the fate of two teenage girls in her hometown who went to Iraq and then Syria with the ISIS invasion and joined the Kobani women's resistance front, and their families were unaware of them for years. She is looking for the addresses of these missing girls. This documentary is being produced in Iran, Iraq and Syria and currently is in the final stages.she was born in villages near the lagoon and made this film in her living area.
Director's note
The struggle for survival between boars and humans in the wetland of “Wild Boars Lagoon ”
(an area of 907 hectares) dates back to hundreds of years ago. Yet, it is not exactly clear whether the humans started building houses around the wetland or the boars came near the human habitations.
There had been some kind of barriers to protect the land before the revolution in 1979. After that, the government cut out the barriers and suggested the farmers build some fence around their land instead. However, the farmers did not have enough money to pay for the fence. As a result, they tried to kill and bury the boars both legally and illegally.
In the last few years, the increase in the number of boars has caused more and more damage to the farmers. Consequently, the farmers have run a business of buying and selling the boar meat without caring about the moral and religious obligations. In fact, they have created a new source of income for themselves.
