The opening text of Mehrdad Oskouei and Soraya Akhalaghi’s documentary A Fox Under A Pink Moon, which opens Docs Barcelona 2026, reads: ‘The film was entirely directed remotely and the protagonist used two cell phones to shoot all the footage over a five-year period.’
We then see the young protagonist we’ll get to know as Soraya. She is filming herself with her smartphone and gives us the starting point of this story: “November 19th, 2019, from Istanbul’s Zeytun Burna Dormitory.” And while she’s sitting there filming, a beautiful fox slowly and quietly moves into the frame and sits down beside her, looking at her with interest and perhaps concern.
This fox is animated, in a digital but beautifully painterly way – both clearly fantastical and convincingly integrated into the documentary reality.
In the film, Soraya refers to Oskouei as ‘Uncle Mehrdad,’ a term of both affection and respect. Known for his impressive documentaries on Iran’s penitentiary system, including the IDFA 2019 opener Sunless Shadows, Oskouei is directing her from a distance. She is an Afghan from Iran, who is now in Turkey, and, we learn, is desperately trying to reach Greece, the European Union and eventually, her mother in Austria, whom she hasn’t seen in years.
If there is one flaw in A Fox Under a Pink Moon, it’s that factual information such as that which I’ve just provided, is sparse and sometimes absent. We stick to Soraya’s point of view (she is rightfully credited as co-director), but because we don’t know everything she does (where she is at a certain moment, whom she’s with, how much time has passed since the previous scene et cetera), a certain uncertainty and distance remains.
But to be clear, it’s a minor complaint. By the end of A Fox Under a Pink Moon, most of the biographical and geographical information has become evident, and Soraya’s portrait feels nuanced and intimate. This is thanks to the directness of Soraya’s recordings, the emotional impact of seeing her being confronted by her abusive husband (at times we even hear her soul-shattering screams recorded), and the insight her animated drawings provide into her dreams and nightmares.
The animated fox is based on her own drawings. Soraya, who according to the press notes is sixteen at the start of the documentary, is an amazing artist and talented sculptor who has created a mythscape that represents her inner world. It contains the titular fox as her wise advisor and companion, the titular moon as the entity always watching over her, and the sad clown behind the happy mask as her alter ego, which she sees as consisting of two people: “The moon, the fox, the clown and the demon live inside me. To me, we’re a complete family.”
The impressionist animations which are based on her drawings, and which appear throughout the documentary, provide the viewer with small islands of refuge – just as Soraya’s art presumably does for herself. The effect is enhanced by the wonderful score which, rather than constantly emphasising the tension and fear of Soraya’s often harrowing adventures, centres on a melancholic, dreamlike flow of longing, subtly balancing resignation and resistance.
As does the film. One moment, Soraya is sitting on the roof terrace of her house, looking out over the city and wondering if she will ever be able to leave, if her situation will ever change…or if she might just as well jump and end it all. Another moment, she is cowering in the dark as shots are fired overhead, during another failed attempt to be smuggled into the European Union.
Yet she keeps trying. Together with others – I don’t know whom, but there are children and some older folk among them – she tries again and again. They call it the ‘game’. One time, their guides suddenly leave them in the desert. Another, their van breaks down. Later, the blinding light of a patrol boat illuminates their nightly attempt to cross the Mediterranean. Her voice-over softly muses: “I wonder what illegal emigrants think about when they are drowning in the sea?”
It’s hard to say what ultimately sustains Soraya. It could be a combination of the hatred she feels for her marital situation, her wish to be reunited with her mother and her longing for personal liberation. But I like to think it’s her art – art which, thanks to the magic of her imagination and the film’s animator, Mohammad Lotfali, has been brought to life as a symbol of hope amidst pain.
Iran/France/United Kingdom/United States/Denmark, 2025, 76 minutes
Director Mehrdad Oskouei, Soraya Akhalaghi
Production Oskouei Films
Producers Mehrdad Oskouei
International sales CAT&Docs
Script Mehrdad Oskouei, Amir Adibparvar
Cinematography Soraya Akhalaghi
Animation Mohammad Lotfali
Editing Amir Adibparvar
Sound design Hossein Ghoorchian
Sound Soraya Akhalaghi
Music Afshin Azizi
With Soraya
