Films

A group of strangers boards a fake train bound for the fictional island of Hermia, each assigned a role (prisoner, judge, singer, conductor) competing to win real money for as long as they can stay in character. Everyone knows the roles are invented; the system enforcing them is not, punishing any deviation with unnerving precision. As some contestants begin to suspect the ride is more than staged, Iranian director Amirali Navaee's Kafkaesque debut explores how staying in character can cost you your moral character entirely. An elegant, astute allegory for how totalitarian systems endure: not through force, but through the quiet complicity of everyone still playing along.