After Mania Akbari from Iran got breast cancer, her colleague and fellow countryman Abbas Kiarostami urged the lead actress of his Ten to make a «sequel». The result is 10+4, a step by step documentation of the development of her illness and its influence on Akbari’s health, mental attitude and her relationships with the people closest to her. She has stated that this film shows her inner experience of the illness.

Formally is 10+4 an allusion to Ten: while the camera is statically observing matters in long, unbroken takes, we follow Akbari while she is driving a car, takes a cable car or receives treatment at the hospital, everything in interaction and intimate conversations with friends and family. But – even more important – 10+4 is an extraordinarily powerful and honest film: personal, revealing, brave and emotionally challenging.

10+4 has become a film that explores illness in modern society but it is perhaps primarily a film about friendship, love and human relationships, and how all this is challenged and influenced by a life-threatening sickness. Therefore it is also a film about the fragility of the body, the transitoriness of life and mental strength. We experience this not least through the film’s depiction of Akbari’s and other cancer-ridden women’s various ways of coping with their illness – their defence mechanisms and awareness of their own femininity after the illness takes away an essential part of the female body.
Through filmmakers like Tamireh Milani and Jafar Panahi, we have over the last few years seen a number of powerful female portraits in Iranian cinema. Mania Akbari’s 10+4 adds a new dimension to this phenomenon. lab

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