A SeparationMovies like A Separation
- Key Features:
- Marital conflict, Moral dilemma, Family drama, Caregiving, Aging parent, Cultural conflict, Legal drama, Social issues, Child custody, Moral ambiguity, Iranian society, Religious faith, Class differences
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, International cinema fans, Viewers interested in social issues, Families
- Emotional Arc:
- Doubt → Tension → Resignation
A Separation

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.
A Separation
Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret...

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

Somaieh, the youngest daughter of an indigent family, is getting married and fear is overwhelming each and every member of the family regarding how to overcome their difficulties after she's gone.

After 15 years as a couple, Ale and Alex decide to throw a party to celebrate their separation, leaving their loved ones perplexed.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

Zahira, 18, is close to her family until her parents ask her to follow Pakistani tradition to choose a husband. Torn between family customs and her western lifestyle, the young woman turns for help to her brother and confidant Amir.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter's hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him - incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing international metropolis.

A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later, the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has trouble adjusting. The daughter then decides to travel to Budapest to discover her identity.

On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actor Behnaz Jafari travel to a tiny village after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying acting. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect old traditions.

After suffering from a heart attack, a wealthy elderly Russian man plans to will most of his estate to his estranged daughter, but his titular wife has other plans.

Mohammad joyfully returns to his tiny village on summer vacation from the Institute for the Blind, unaware of his widowed father's intentions to disown him in order to win the hand—and dowry—of a local woman. With the wedding swiftly approaching, Mohammad's future hangs precariously in the balance as his father struggles against his destiny, unable to see the wonder of life and love that's so clear to his son.

Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy.

While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

Anna happily lives with her husband, their two boys, and Simon, 6 years-old, who was placed with her by the Social Care services when he was only 18 months. When Simon’s father decides that he is ready to take his son back with him, the family’s balance is at stake. Anna is torn apart: how could she possibly let go a of child who has always called her ‘Mom’?

The neurotic Fikret and tavern singer Solmaz, whose 21 year long relationships end on the same day, meet through a funny coincidence. When Solmaz's daughter Zeynep decides to marry her lover from Adana, the ever-fearful Fikret ends up having to play the role of his life. Intended at first to be kept in the family, the wedding becomes a much bigger event upon the insistence of the groom's relatives. Can our heroes come to terms with the traditional Adana family who carry guns and own a kebab restaurant chain, and see the wedding through without mishaps?

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.

In a patriarchal society, an ordinary Georgian family lives with three generations under one roof. All are shocked when 52-year-old Manana decides to move out from her parents’ home and live alone. Without her family and her husband, a journey into the unknown begins.

Mahin lives alone in Tehran since her husband’s death and her daughter’s departure for Europe, until an afternoon tea with friends leads her to break her solitary routine and revitalize her love life.

Gab has a well-ordered life: a fiancée, a wealthy family. Leïla, who struggles to juggle her studies, odd jobs, and a brother to support, does not allow herself to live her own life... When Gab meets Leïla, it is a clash of worlds, the beginning of a great love story that will collide violently with reality.

Xavier is a 40-year-old father of two who still finds life very complicated. When the mother of his children moves to New York, he can't bear them growing up far away from him and so he decides to move there as well.

A South Korean woman in her sixties enrolls in a poetry class as she grapples with her faltering memory and her grandson's appalling wrongdoing.

Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.

Eager to provide a better future for her son, Fadi, divorcée Muna Farah leaves her Palestinian homeland and takes up residence in rural Illinois -- just in time to encounter the domestic repercussions of America's disastrous war in Iraq. Now, the duo must reinvent their lives with some help from Muna's sister, Raghda, and brother-in-law, Nabeel.

It tells the story of Marcos and Ana, who have been married for more than 25 years, but enter into an existential crisis that leads them to separate. The life of singles seems fascinating and exciting at first, but soon it also becomes monotonous for her and nightmarish for him.

Fatima, an Algerian-born woman who now lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.

Raf and Julie, a couple on the verge of breaking up, find themselves in an emergency ward bordering on collapse on the evening of a Parisian Yellow Vest protest. Their encounter with Yann, an angry and injured demonstrator, will shatter each person's certainties and prejudices. Outside, the tension escalates.

An immigrant Indian mother fights the Norwegian foster care system and legal machinery to win back custody of her children.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

Miriam and Antoine have recently separated. While she’s willing to permit their 17-year-old daughter Josephine to decide living arrangements for herself, Miriam is desperate to keep her youngest, 11-year-old Julien, away from his father. But the magistrate rules in favour of joint custody, and suddenly the boy is thrown directly into the middle of an escalating parental conflict, where it seems inevitable that sides must be chosen.

When their best friends announce that they're separating, a professor and his wife discover the faults in their own marriage.

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.

A story centered around a divorced couple living in a southern Chinese city Shenzhen and dealing with the disappearance of their missing son.

A psychiatrist's adulterous past continues to haunt her and her husband after they move to India.

With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

Claudia and Flavio were once passionately in love, but all of that is over. Now, in their fifties, they must venture anew into the world of love and dating once more but for Claudia confronting the end and accepting a new beginning isn’t so easy. Claudia is unwilling to let go and forget the life she’s built with Flavio, while Flavio, eager to move on, soon finds himself in a relationship with a much younger woman. Claudia soon reconnects with Nina, a student from her days as a professor.

Kaveh Nariman is a Doctor in the medical examiner's office. One day at his work he meets a corpse which is very familiar to him.

Alma, Jean and Sebastiano, the children of divorced parents, arrive in Rome from Paris on a visit to their father. During a holiday, the family’s tensions come to the surface.

A woman has a close bond with her beloved Algeriann grandfather, who protected her from a toxic home life as a child; his death triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate, revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.

Florencia and Vicente are getting divorced. When both are promoted at their jobs, they will do anything in order to do not keep custody of their children.

While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.

Selma, a psychoanalyst, deals with a cast of colorful new patients after returning home to Tunisia to open a practice.

Dorota Geller, a married woman, faces a dilemma involving her sick husband's prognosis. Her husband's doctor, who believes in God, sweared about it in vain.

Zohre's shoes are gone; her older brother Ali lost them. They are poor, there are no shoes for Zohre until they come up with an idea: they will share one pair of shoes. School awaits.

A headstrong Chinese-American woman returns to China when her beloved grandmother is given a terminal diagnosis. Billi struggles with her family's decision to keep grandma in the dark about her own illness as they all stage an impromptu wedding to see grandma one last time.

Marilou and Philippe prepare for their future retirement in Portugal. But their daughter separates and a whole procession of solicitations falls on them.

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

Magdalena makes a journey to find her son, who has disappeared on his way to the Mexican border with the United States. Her odyssey takes her to meet Miguel, a man recently deported from the US. They start to travel together, Magdalena looking for her son, and Miguel hoping to see his mother again.

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.

In Paris, Clara, psycho motor therapist, and Ismaël, music teacher, have been lovers for four years. Happy, the couple are expecting their first child and decide to move in together. But the news is not well received by their respective families because Clara is Jewish and Ishmael a Muslim. Although not practicing, this difference will gradually sow trouble in their love life.

Astrid is the wife of an acclaimed lawyer. Silenced for 25 years, her family balance suddenly collapses when her children initiate their search for justice.

Aya Okamura has been working for two years and has begun living on her own for a job opportunity. With her mother working overseas as a doctor, her father is now living alone with the family's longtime pet cat Mii-san. One night, Aya returns from a long day at work, and as she rests on her bed, she reminiscences about the times the family had together. She remembers the sadness she felt when her mom went overseas, and the solace she felt when her father brought home Mii-san to give her comfort. Then, she receives a phone call.

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.

An old villager deeply in love with his cow goes to the capital for a while. While he's there, the cow dies and now the villagers are afraid of his possible reaction to it when he returns.

After his daughter is assaulted and left with an injury that may jeopardize her opportunity to study in the UK, a Romanian doctor decides to do whatever it takes to secure her future.

A divorced couple fights for the custody of their three children: neither of them wants it. Mom wants to leave them to dad, and vice versa.

Company commander Claus Michael Pedersen and his men are stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, with a husband at war and three children missing their father, everyday life is a struggle for Claus' wife Maria. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy Taliban crossfire. In order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that ultimately sees him return to Denmark accused of a war crime.

Abla runs a modest local bakery from her home in Casablanca where she lives alone with her 8-year-old daughter Warda. Their routine of housework and homework is interrupted one day by a knock on the door. It is Samia, a young woman looking for a job and a roof over her head. The little girl is immediately taken with the newcomer, but her mother initially refuses to allow a pregnant stranger into their home. Gradually, however, Abla's resolve softens and Samia's arrival begins to offer all of them the prospect of a new life.

Based on a true story set in 1948, customs officer Mehti is faced with the duty of formally setting up the border between Turkey and Syria, dividing his hometown. He is unaware of the pain that will eminently unfold, as families, languages, cultures and lovers are both ripped apart and clash head on in a village once united.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

Jérôme Varenne, a French financier, lives and works in Shanghai with Chen-Li, his life and business partner. One day, during a short stay in Paris, while paying a call to his mother, he is very displeased to learn from her and his hated brother, that the family house in Ambray is going to be sold. Jerome decides to go to the town where he grew up to see what is going on. Little does he know how eventful his escapade will be. Little does he know that it will change his life from soup to nuts...

After moving from Calcutta to New York, members of the Ganguli family maintain a delicate balancing act between honoring the traditions of their native India and blending into American culture. Although parents Ashoke and Ashima are proud of the sacrifices they make to give their children opportunities, their son Gogol strives to forge his own identity without forgetting his heritage.

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.

Set in 1980s Toronto, a young boy shuffles between the homes of his recently divorced parents.

Laurent, a young brigade commander in a gendarmerie in a small town in Normandy is planning his wedding with Marie, his partner and mother of his daughter. He loves his job despite facing social misery on a daily basis. One day, a farmer who might try to kill himself runs away.

During a harsh Montréal winter, an elementary-school class is left reeling after its teacher commits suicide. Bachir Lazhar, a charismatic Algerian immigrant, steps in as the substitute teacher for the classroom of traumatized children. All the while, he must keep his personal life tucked away: the fact that he is seeking political refuge in Québec – and that he, like the children, has suffered an appalling loss.

A disenfranchised 16-year-old girl connects to an older man on the internet and after a brief one-sided affair descends into obsession and anorexia.

A boy is left alone in a Jewish neighborhood in the year of 1970, where both world cup and dictatorship happen in Brazil.

Francesca is a pediatrician who is dedicated to both motherhood and children, married to another physician, Pedro. After the birth of a new child, Francesca begins to suffer from postpartum depression. Following the advice of friend and psychiatrist Jean, the couple move to a new home away from the city…

An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.

After a 15-year marriage, a couple readies for divorce but suddenly realize that their feelings haven't vanished yet.

The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

Alex and Noémie would like to have a child. But their plans are turned upside down when Alex's mother, Suzanne, has contracted "semantic dementia", a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects her behavior.

Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.

A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship challenged by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice.

A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.

A young, aspiring filmmaker falls in love with a girl who moves into the house above his, but her sophisticated nature does more harm than good to him.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.

Sara and Nicola are married and in love. Their lives seem to be perfect: they have an angelic six-year-old daughter, thriving careers and a stable marriage. The birth of their second child, which disrupts the family balance, leads to tragicomic scenarios.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.



