Film: FIRE KEEPER - Montreal World Film Festival 2009
Forty-eight-year-old Sohrab, head of the workers of the Isfahan Foundry, has just had his fourth daughter. He has a strong desire to have a son, but his wife cannot have another pregnancy for health reasons. So she persuades her husband to undergo a vasectomy, which will render him sterile. But his late father appears to him in a dream and forbids him to undergo the surgery.
Sohrab is torn between pleasing his wife and his father. He tries to change his wife's mind over the vasectomy -- without success. Nor does his father's dream position change. Indeed, his father takes Sohrab on a visit to hell to show him what punishments await those men who have deliberately become sterile.
The local mullah, who has considerable influence on the foundry, has a private opinion about this operation that is sympathetic, but he pronounces himself publicly against Sohrab's operation. As a consequence, Sohrab's fellow workers turn away from their colleague, even stop talking to him. Sohrab runs away and returns to the doctor's office. The doctor has some surprising information for Sohrab...
Mohsen Amiryoussefi
Born in Abadan, Iran in 1972, Mohsen Amiryoussefi and his family moved from the border city to Sedeh, his mother's hometown, at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. He studied mathematics at the University of Ispahan but eventually gravitated towards the arts, in particular the theatre, writing plays and scripts before finally turning to the cinema. His short films include: The Fine (1995), Nader, Son of the Sword (1998), Father and Son (1999), Stony Hands (2000) and Caravan (2002). His debut feature, BITTER DREAM, was shown in competition at the 2004 Montreal World Film Festival.
