‘Alone in Tehran’ to open Diaspora Film Festival in South Korea
Iranian filmmaker Amin Sahraei’s ‘Alone in Tehran’ has been selected as the opening film of the 14th International Diaspora Film Festival in Incheon, South Korea, spotlighting a personal war-time narrative shaped by conflict, resilience, and human fragility.
The film, which will be screened on May 22, unfolds as an intimate account of solitude and survival amid destruction, charting one individual’s confrontation with pain and the search for meaning at the edge of collapse. Festival organizers described the work as a “raw, lived experience” that blurs the boundary between artistic expression and personal testimony, Mehr News agency reported.
Sahraei, who directed the film under physically and emotionally challenging conditions linked to wartime circumstances, frames the project as both documentation and reflection. “It comes from within,” he said, stressing the film’s deeply autobiographical tone and its focus on human endurance when hope becomes scarce.
Alone in Tehran has already circulated on the international festival circuit, including screenings at the 34th Louis International Film Festival in the United States and the AMDOCS Documentary Film Festival, known for its focus on socially engaged cinema.
Produced in both short and feature-length versions, the film is currently continuing its global festival run, with plans for a domestic screening following its international trajectory.
Although Sahraei secured visas for Greece and South Korea, he was unable to attend in person due to wartime-related constraints. In a gesture of solidarity, organizers of both the Paziouiti Festival in Greece and the Diaspora Film Festival dedicated the screenings to the filmmaker and the conditions under which the film was made, calling it a work that “speaks beyond borders.”