This debut feature from Karim-Masihi won a record nine awards including Best Director and Best Film at the Ninth Fajr International Film Festival. An atmospheric mystery which unfolds as a play within a play, the action takes place in 1930's Tehran where a sinister brother and sister plot to dispose of their recently widowed sister-inlaw in order to obtain her inheritance. To implement their scheme, the siblings hire a troupe of itinerant performers to pose as servants and stage horrific events. The terrified widow calls on the police for help, but the investigator assigned to the case becomes convinced she is crazy because evidence of each crime disappears before authorities arrive on the scene. Karim-Masihi's slick use of theatrical metaphor recalls the work of Jacques Rivette.
