The Sealed Soil

The earliest complete surviving feature film directed by an Iranian woman — Marva Nabili's *The Sealed Soil* is a masterwork of world cinema that's been underseen for far too long. It follows a young woman's resistance to forced marriage, a rebellion her family quickly misinterprets as demonic possession. The film is breathtaking in its directorial sophistication and unblinking in its critique of institutionalized misogyny.

Marva Nabili directed this in 1977, and it's now been brilliantly restored in vivid 4K. The film stars Flora Shabaviz and runs 90 minutes in Farsi with English subtitles. It's the kind of cinema that rewards full attention — a quiet, powerful statement about a woman's autonomy and the forces arrayed against it.