Secret Ballot

A gem, captured in the unhurried, low-key style favored by many directors of the Iranian new wave.""""
-Patrick Z. McGavin, Chicago Tribune
Secret Ballot charms with its amalgam of absurdity, optimism, humor, and avuncular regard for the million small daily chores, rituals, suspicions, and courtesies of dwellers on even the sparsest spots on earth."" ""
-Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
Funny, provocative, well-paced and leaves a memorable bittersweet aftertaste.""""
-Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Synopsis

An unsuspecting soldier awakens to discover that he can forget about another uneventful day at his lonely seaside post. It's Election Day! A ballot box is parachuted down as a young woman pulls up to the shore of the remote island. To the soldier's surprise, she's actually the government bureaucrat in charge of local voting. The couple gets off to a rocky start since the soldier expects election agents to be men. Whether he wants to or not, the soldier is thrown into an elections adventure that just may put him out of a job. Orders from above force him to accompany the female agent in an army jeep across the island's dusty desert. The agent literally leaves no stone unturned in her search for ballots. Many a surprise lies along their route, as they find themselves in one absurd situation after another. So much can happen in a single day, especially when opposites attract. Views can change, hearts can melt.

Original Languages: Farsi (Persian)
Genre: Comedy, World Cinema
Running Time: 105 min.
Year: 2001

CREDITS

CAST
Cyrus Abidi
Nassim Abdi
DIRECTED BY
Babak Payami

PHOTOS