The world premiere of family drama Hijamat will be a bittersweet moment for Iranian writer and director Nader Saeivar (The Witness, No End, Namo). After all, the film was produced and edited by his long-time friend and creative collaborator Jafar Panahi. The auteur duo co-wrote Cannes 2025 Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, but only Saeivar will get to travel to the world premiere of Hijamat in the Crystal Globe main competition at the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Wednesday, July 8.

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Saeivar left Iran for Berlin in the middle of the shoot for Accident, making Hijamat his first feature fully made outside of the country. Karlovy Vary was hoping to welcome Panahi as part of the delegation for the film, but the filmmaker had returned to Iran following the Accident Oscar campaign. Recently, Iranian authorities took his passport, and he faces another prison term in Iran, following a verdict that found him guilty of “propaganda against the regime.”

In Hijamat, multihyphenate Kida Khodr Ramadan plays Murad, who struggles to protect his younger brother Kerem (Jael Cem Ilhan) when he finds out that the young sibling is gay. Long-buried secrets soon threaten to tear his deeply religious Muslim family and their life in Berlin apart. Nicolette Krebitz, Aziz Capkurt, Moritz Bleibtreu and Nastassja Kinski also feature in the film.

“Hijamat” is an ancient therapeutic practice also known as wet cupping, which is designed to draw out small amounts of blood from the body for pain relief and detoxification.

Ahead of the movie’s world premiere, Saeivar talked to THR, via an interpreter, about the inspiration for Hijamat, how his personal journey plays into the film, talking to Panahi every day and why everyone needs hijamat.

In fact, the idea that people can their minds is core to the film. “I believe that we have to really tackle the issues that are like a wall that we have built around ourselves,” Saeivar says of the inspiration for the film. “Without that, we cannot change any political issues. It’s like the ‘dirty’ blood in the back of our bodies, as we see in Hijamat. If we don’t get rid of it, if we don’t tackle it, nothing changes!”

Hijamat marked a change from the filmmaker’s more outside-focused activism. “My three previous films are about social issues and people’s objectives,” he tells THR. “But for this film, I stopped thinking about that and instead thought about the roots of these problems. And in fact, this film is like my story in the present time.”

Indeed, his personal journey and experience mirror the themes explored in Hijamat. “Moving to Berlin helped me think about myself, my inner feelings…” says Saeivar. “When I moved from Iran to Berlin after 50 years of my life, suddenly I realized that all those wrong beliefs I had — they broke down within one night. I suddenly realized that I was just wasting my energy on such wrong and rigid beliefs.”

Such as his take on the Iran-Iraq relationship. “In the ’80s, in Iran, we believed that we had an eight-year war with Iraq, and we believed that if we went to that war and we fought, that would be the right thing, and we should die for our beliefs,” Saeivar recalls.

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“I was a child, and I believed it strongly,” he continues. “I really wished to grow up fast to go to war and become a martyr. Just imagine what it was like when I later realized that all that war was due to political gains for some?! Imagine how I felt. Where was God? Where was paradise?”

Fear of questioning one’s beliefs is as much a hurdle for change as is propaganda, he adds: “There are still many people in Iran who believe in those things, and even if they know about it, they are afraid of putting them aside and changing their mind.”

Importantly, Hijamat may be set in the Turkish community in Berlin, but its themes are universal. “I used this issue in a small community as an excuse to tackle something global – the rigid beliefs that we have in our minds that we have built like a wall around ourselves,” explains the director. “In the East, we can say that this wall around us is formed by religion and religious beliefs, but in the West, the wall is built by memories of the past. The Eastern person is broken under the weight of religion and rigid beliefs, but the Western person is broken or strangled by remembering the glorious past. Until you take this load off your shoulders, you will never reach real freedom. That’s why I believe that everybody needs hijamat.”

That is why Hijamat shows Murad, in one scene, being taken to the cellar of a building as if to dig deep and look inside himself.

About the choice of Ramadan as the protagonist in the film, Saeivar tells THR: “He is very well known in Germany and in the Arab and Turkish community in Berlin. We have a saying in Persian: ‘If you want to conquer a village, you have to see the mayor first.’ And Kida is like that mayor. I thought if I want to reach this community, it’s better if he talks, not me. And he was like a brother by my side. I believe that he’s an actor not only by skills but also by heart. He reminds me of the best of Jean Reno, the French actor.”

When Panahi came to Berlin to do the editing, “he was amazed by his work,” Saeivar recalls about his famous friend’s reaction to Ramadan’s work. “And he said, ‘Wow, what a good choice! This guy is really amazing.”

Panahi’s absence from the Karlovy Vary premiere hangs over the conversation. “Unfortunately, he won’t be there,” Saeivar says simply. “He cannot leave Iran.”

Yet the two remain as close as ever. “I speak to him every day. We speak at least one hour per day because he’s just getting bored in Iran. He can’t do anything. He’s very busy with the judiciary, going to court and seeing a lawyer every day etc. Instead of spending his time on a new project, he has to spend all his time and energy on these issues.”

The bond between them shows no sign of fading. When Saeivar and several colleagues from It Was Just an Accident were accepted into the Academy, it was Panahi who picked up the phone first. “He called me to congratulate me,” Saeivar recalls. “And every time I have a new idea, Jafar Panahi is the first person I speak with.”

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