Iranian helmer Marjan Khosravi brings Dreams of the Wild Oaks to the IDFA Forum 2025 as a rough-cut project now in post-production and produced by Milad Khosravi for Seven Springs Pictures, with French and Spanish co-production partners on board in the form of Avant la Nuit and Lukimedia. Set within a Bakhtiari community in southwest Iran, the film follows Samaneh, a young girl racing against time to save her freedom. Caught between a forced marriage and the ancestral ritual of Cease Blood Sacrifice, she embarks on a quest to find rare and endangered birds—a path that challenges her beliefs and tests the limits of her father’s love.
Khosravi explained that the film’s core grew from a deeply personal place. She says Dreams of the Wild Oaks was shaped by an urge to explore “women in closed and traditional societies, women who struggle with issues related to health, body, and their freedom.” Having grown up in the same region as Samaneh, she recalls how restrictive beliefs and narrow expectations continue to define daily life for many women. The story, she said, was “inspired by the pain my mother carried throughout her life.” Her mother had been married at twelve, forced into adulthood far too early, and that silent suffering left a mark on the director. “It’s not just my mother’s story; it belongs to many women who have faced the same fate,” she noted, adding that some resisted and others continue to fight quietly.
She describes her filmmaking as an attempt to break silences that are considered shameful or inappropriate to address, especially in patriarchal environments. “In my films, I am drawn to tell the stories of women and girls whose lives are often considered shameful or inappropriate to talk about, stories that can make men in such societies uncomfortable or even angry,” she says. Yet she believes that cinema’s responsibility is “to speak the truths that are hard to hear,” and create greater understanding. She hopes the film’s intimate access to a deeply traditional and religious community will open space for dialogue. “Perhaps, over time, simply talking about these ‘forbidden’ subjects will no longer carry shame, but courage.”
The team believes the film’s emotional resonance extends far beyond its village setting. They describe Dreams of the Wild Oaks as a work for “anyone who believes in freedom.” Although rooted in Iran, its universal themes reflect the experiences of women around the world who have been silenced or confined by social expectations. For Khosravi, the story ultimately speaks about home, resistance and hope for a better future.
The producers believe this is a strong moment for additional partners to join. The project has already secured around 80% of its budget and benefits from support from leading international funds including Catapult Film Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund, Vision Sud Est and the CNC. An advanced cut is available for interested partners.
They emphasise that the film’s themes—children’s rights, environmental awareness, and human resilience—give it strong potential across a wide range of markets. They express confidence that partners could help position the film strategically for the audiences who need it most. Their goal is to premiere at an A-category festival and bring what they describe as a powerful, poetic story to viewers concerned with social change, gender equality and universal human experience. They confirmed a financing gap of around 20% and are also looking for sales agents, distributors, festivals and broadcasters during IDFA.
Khosravi is considered one of the most promising emerging voices in Iranian documentary. Having grown up within a Bakhtiari tribe, she developed an artistic approach that merges poetic visual language with grounded social realism. Her films have screened at IDFA, Hot Docs, Big Sky, Krakow and other major festivals, consistently exploring questions of identity, women’s rights and resilience. The project benefits from the production experience of Milad Khosravi, whose recent titles include Terrestrial Verses (Cannes 2023, Un Certain Regard), Requiem for a Tribe (Shanghai 2024), Cinema Jazireh (Karlovy Vary 2025) and Divine Comedy (Venice 2025). He has built a wide network of international partnerships and distributor relationships.
The international co-production team contributes strong European support. Thibaut Amri of Avant la Nuit and Stephanie von Lukowicz of Lukimedia bring extensive experience in European co-production and post-production workflows, while the project has collaborated with an array of European talent—including editor Ehsan Vaseghi, as well as a colourist Graziella Zanoni and sound designers Jocelyn Robert—enhancing its cinematic texture and global reach.
Visually and narratively, the filmmakers describe their access as unusually intimate for a region where documentary presence is limited. The project enters private domestic spaces, traditional rituals and landscapes that are rarely filmed, driven by a young protagonist caught between cultural duty and personal freedom.
