After two short films (In Between, 2018 and America, 2020), Aliyar Rasti makes his feature debut with The Great Yawn of History: a critique of Iranian religious extremism anchored in humour and fantasy. Beitollah is about a man who dreams of finding a cave with gold coins in a coffer. Against the precepts of his religion, he wishes to find this treasure. He recruits a young atheist, Shoja, as his assistant. Together they embark on a quest that will take them to different parts of the Iranian landscape, portrayed by Rasti with great filmic sensitivity. The Great Yawn of History narrates an odyssey where the oneiric, and even the absurd, intrude on reality. A journey of external exploration that ends up revealing the tensions between two apparently opposing characters, who nevertheless find in each other a mirror to look into.
Aliyar Rasti
He was born in Tehran in 1988. He started out as a visual artist and has since ventured off into filmmaking. During his training he received teachings from masters such as the playwright Mohammad Charmshir or the filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami, Kamran Shirdel or Asghar Farhadi. His first short film was ‘In Between’ (2018), which won the Best Short Film of the year at the prestigious 35th Tehran International Short Film Festival and the Best Debut Film at the 16th Tirana International Film Festival in Albania. ‘America’ (2020) was his second short film. ‘The Great Yawn of History’ (2024), his feature film debut, had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section.
![Logo Foro Cultural de Austria Madrid[1]](https://www.seminci.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Logo-Foro-Cultural-de-Austria-Madrid1-300x76.jpg){kind=logo}
