Iranian Satire 'Head to Head' Forces Male Cast Into Hijabs
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- DreamLab Films has boarded worldwide sales on Iranian satirical picture "Head to Head" (Sar beh Sar) ahead of its world premiere at TIFF, with the Paris-based company also handling festival strategy.
- Ghasideh Golmakani directs, writes, and produces the film — her first feature following a string of internationally screened shorts on gender, power, and social taboos in Iran; she holds a Sorbonne PhD on Iranian women filmmakers before and after the Revolution.
- Head to Head follows an acclaimed female writer-director who requires her male cast to wear skirts and headscarves on set, reversing Iran's mandatory dress code and triggering resistance, heat complaints, and wounded pride among the men.
- The ensemble cast includes Mehrnoosh Satari, Saeed Naderi, Ebrahim Azizi (of "It Was Just an Accident"), Amir Hajimohammadi, Elaheh Farazmand, and Lili Farhadpour (of "My Favorite Cake").
- The film is an Iran-Germany co-production, with David M. Lorenz as associate producer, Saba M. Rezaei as executive producer, Amin Jafari on cinematography, and original music by Yoones Eskandari.
- Golmakani described the film as "an invitation to male colleagues to reflect on what women have had and still have to endure in order to continue existing on the cinema screen."
Why it matters: Golmakani uses TIFF's world premiere platform — secured via DreamLab's sales deal — to invert Iran's hijab rules as a comedic lens on gender restriction, potentially giving international buyers and festival programmers a commercially packaged, co-produced vehicle for the debate over dress-code enforcement in Iranian cinema.
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