Céline Roustan
Just another morning for a teenage girl, some last-minute cramming for an exam as she eats breakfast. Today of all days, she can’t be late, but her father has just tasked her to deliver a package before school – the content clearly illegal. In Emtehan (Exam), writer/director Sonia K. Hadad blends the mundane routine of her main character with a tense situation which is intensified by the story’s location (Iran is well-known for severe punishments for drug offences) and the fact that her privacy can be breached at any given time.
“For me, going to school was all about restrictions and stress”
When asked about what inspired this particular situation, Hadad tells us that it was a combination of her own experiences and a story she heard from a friend. Fueled by a desire to depict the academic atmosphere she grew up in, this narrative realistically uses the environment to accentuate how stressful the position the teenage girl found herself in is. “For me, going to school was all about restrictions and stress. In the movie, the school’s atmosphere was a reflection or metaphor of a controlled society and cultural crash”, she shares with us.
When she can’t deliver a package of cocaine, Exam’s young protagonist must take it with her to school.
While the presence of illicit drugs is at the center of the film, the narrative is not about drug use, but rather their circulation and the place they occupy in society, especially in situations where most would not expect to find them. As in a lot of Iranian cinema, the storytelling here is nuanced with lots to unpack in terms of character development and social commentary. The strength of the screenplay creating a convincing realism to magnify the tense atmosphere which never feels contrived, our engagement with the story deepening with every twist and turn.
In addition to being a fan of Iranian cinema, when I saw that S/W alum Farnoosh Samadi (Gaze) was credited as a co-writer, I knew this film was not to be missed. What surprised me most with Exam, was how that aforementioned tension, so contagious through the screen, pushes the film from drama to thriller territory – it has even been screened at a number of genre festivals. The bag search scene really gets our anxiety going and as she’s left with just one last option to hide her secret we all recognise her actions are extremely dangerous, but we can’t look away.
The lead performance of Sadaf Asgari is key to the short film’s success
The core of the narrative may revolve around a bag of cocaine, but it is the central performance of Sadaf Asgari (on-screen for almost the entirety of the short’s 15-minute duration) who holds our focus throughout. Introduced to Hadad by co-writer Samadi (who had already worked with the actress on a couple of projects), though her dialogue is limited, as we follow her through that hellish morning her performance stays impressively grounded. The camera often very close to her face, she makes the audience truly feel when her survival instinct kicks in and she battles not to reveal her inner fear to her approaching teacher. The last shot simply gave me chills.
Exam premiered at the 2019 edition of TIFF and then went on to screen at Sundance (where it won an acting prize) and the Palm Springs ShortFest 2020 in 2020, collecting many awards (including Academy Qualifying ones) during its impressive festival career. Hadad is currently working on her next short film, while also developing a feature film screenplay.