About Elly

A thrilling story about people entangled in a web of lies desperately trying to hide away from their guilt and responsibility. In About Elly, Asghar Farhadi takes his extraordinary talent to a higher level with a masterful psychological drama. Farhadi won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival where the film also was nominated for the Golden Bear. Three Iranian middle class families leave for a weekend trip to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Along with them is the young, beautiful and unmarried pre-school teacher Elly. Recently divorced Ahmad joins and they are envisaged as a couple. The whole thing proceeds very cheerfully, until a sudden turning point occurs. The observational and lightly comic portrait of Iranian middle class transforms into a dark and complex moral game when of the children almost drowns and Elly disappears without a trace. But has she drowned or run away? With a sharp rhetorical knife the director cuts into the relationships among those left behind, revealing lies, cowardice and violence under the surface. ls