No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009)

A filmmaker and music promoter (the fantastic Hamed Behdad) trolls Tehran to piece together a clandestine rock concert in Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi's musical travelogue. This was a revelation, not just in the vibrancy and diversity of Iran's music scene, but how unbroken and defiant the Iranians are after living under decades of Islamic law. The concert is being held so that they can raise money to buy passports and leave the country to play their music, music is literal and figurative liberation, a beautiful dramatization of the metaphor. Of course the concert is illegal, and the maneuvering required (Behad proves his mettle as a promoter by expertly talking his way out of serious jail time, concert-goers must be brought in three at a time to avoid detection) is indeed what actual filming was like. Ghobadi and his film crew worked on the fly without permits and were constantly looking over their shoulders. The effort pays off and the movie has an exciting, seat-of-your-pants tone. It also lingers in the mind afterwords because of the characters' simple yearning to be free. They speak of passports and visas the way prisoners speak of parole. A wonderful movie.