The UK's Oscar Entry Is About an Iranian Filmmaker's Life in Exile
The UK has selected Pegah Ahangarani's Rehearsals For A Revolution as its entry to the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. Deadline describes the film as exploring the Iranian filmmaker's experience of exile as she rebuilds her life and creative practice in London, and as structured through five portraits of relatives and mentors rather than a single narrator's account of leaving home. That structure is the interesting bet: a story about starting over arrives through five other people, which makes the rebuilding look less like a solo project than something held up by relationships. As a selection, it also puts a London-rooted exile's story at the centre of the UK's campaign.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Five portraits instead of one narrator is a formal bet that exile isn't only one person's experience — it gets carried, interrupted and reinterpreted by the people around you.
True, but the portraits are of relatives and mentors, which keeps the filmmaker at the centre. The five are mirrors more than protagonists.