Falling House gets sales push before Venice bow
Paradise City Sales will represent international rights on Mohsen Gharaei’s Iranian drama, which premieres in Venice’s Horizons section.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
Mohsen Gharaei’s new feature Falling House is heading to Venice with a sales team now in place.
Paradise City Sales is attached to the Iranian drama ahead of its world premiere in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival. CAA Media Finance is handling U.S. rights, while Paradise City Sales is representing the film internationally, according to Variety.
The movie is Gharaei’s follow-up to Blockage, his 2017 drama about contemporary Iranian society. That film won best film at Busan and later screened at Rotterdam and Munich.
A family under pressure near Tehran
Falling House centers on a working-class family living on the edge of Tehran as their home faces demolition because of a large redevelopment plan.
According to the film’s synopsis, the father, Rashid, works as a prison guard and is accused of corruption. At the same time, he learns that his eldest daughter, Ensi, has been secretly preparing to leave Iran and pursue modeling.
As demolition crews move closer, the pressure inside the family home builds.
Gharaei described the film in stark terms, saying: “The most terrifying structures are the ones that no longer need a tyrant. Their logic has already taken root in the minds of many. They become truly powerful the moment they are no longer recognized as violence. A prison no longer needs walls. It only needs people willing to call it home.”
The team behind the film
Gharaei wrote Falling House with Amir Mohammad Abdi. The cast includes Laleh Marzban, Rima Raminfar, Farhad Aslani and Elena Khakbaz.
The film’s creative team includes composer Max Richter, whose credits include Hamnet, cinematographer Farshad Mohammadi, editors Evelyn Rack and Emad Khodabakhsh, and sound designer Ansgar Frerich, who was Oscar-nominated for Of Fathers and Sons.
Milad Khosravi and Gharaei produce for Seven Springs Pictures. Odessa Rae, an Oscar-winning producer, produces for RaeFilm Studios. Daya Fernández, Amaury Nolasco and Alois Rubenbauer produce for 3SIX9 Studios.
Basis Berlin Filmproduktion and Zentropa Germany are co-producing. Jon Kilik, the Oscar-nominated producer whose credits include Babel and The Hunger Games, serves as executive producer.
Khosravi, producing for Seven Springs Pictures, said the film carries “a warning we have felt growing for years.” He said the idea was developed long before current events in Iran, adding that the movie now feels “painfully prophetic” because it reflects what he described as the suffering of ordinary people after decades of oppression and the fear caused by the ongoing war.
Rae said through RaeFilm Studios that Falling House is “not a film about politics,” but “a film about people living under its weight.” She added: “Every system eventually arrives at someone’s front door. Mohsen captures this with extraordinary restraint.”
Jeanne Loriotti, a sales executive at Paradise City Sales, said Gharaei had made “a compelling, plot-driven story” with urgency and layered characters. She said the company responded to the film’s tension, emotional weight and performances, especially those from the female cast.
Gharaei is represented by Seven Springs Pictures. Paradise City Sales’ Venice lineup also includes Andrea Pallaoro’s The Echo Chamber and Lili Horvát’s My Notes on Mars, which is opening Venice Days.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.