82 minutes / Color
Farsi / English subtitles
Release: 2025
Copyright: 2023
“What are you thinking? You’re thinking, ‘This is cinema. I’m sowing seeds to create a dialogue.’ Maybe you’ll be able to open a dialogue. A dialogue without any outcome.” — Zar Amir Ebrahimi
Filmmaker Mehran Tamadon (Bassidji) is an Iranian in exile, living in France. For years, he was able to travel back and forth between the two countries. Then, in 2012, he was warned that coming back would mean prison, torture — or worse.
Seeking to understand the mindset of the torturers, and the experience of fellow emigrés who have suffered at their hands, Mehran comes up with a plan: He’ll ask one of them to interrogate him, pushing him to the limit. Ultimately, Mehran hopes to return to Iran with his film, and show it to real torturers as a way to spark recognition of how far they have drifted from their basic humanity.
Celebrated actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) takes up the offer. She interrogates Mehran over two intense days — stripping him almost naked, subjecting him to freezing showers, haranguing him about his beliefs.
But as MY WORST ENEMY progresses, it raises uncomfortable questions for everyone involved.
What long-term effects will Zar suffer from taking on the vile persona of those who once tortured her? How much of Zar’s interrogation is a performance? A role like so many others she has played? Is Mehran being tortured, or is he the torturer for putting her through this?
And how complicit are we, by watching?
“A daring experiment... loaded with shocking stabs of confession, continually grappling with the frightening psychological excesses of power.” —High on Films
“At the end of My Worst Enemy, Ebrahimi confronts herself and director Tamadon with the dilemmas of the relationship between victims and perpetrators. How much evil is there in each of us, at least when feelings of revenge are involved? Would everyone be capable of becoming violent if we were asked to have such an interrogation last not two days, but three weeks? Is Ebrahimi’s aggression fueled by pain? And how much obscenity is there in being celebrated with such critical films at festivals? We see a film about torture, and we applaud, which is also inevitably obscene.” —Christiane Pietz, Der Tagesspiegel
“Crucially, the picture manages to reveal the mechanism through which torturers lose their humanness and viscerally answers the question about conscience that Tamadon asked Rahmani. For the audience, spending an hour with a simulation of an interrogation could be trying or even excruciating, depending on their sensibilities, but it provides for an unparalleled moment of realisation. My Worst Enemy may not turn any evil-doer from the Iranian regime around, but it will certainly enlighten audiences bold enough to accept this threatening proposition.” —Cineuropa
Select Accolades
Since its earliest days, the Iranian regime has relied on forced, televised confessions to humiliate and discredit its opponents and instill fear in its citizens
Maziar Bahari | 2014 | 58 minutes | Color
Depicts clashes in modern Iran between extreme fundamentalism and young people who are pushing for social change, filming with soldiers, religious leaders, students, artists and intellectuals.
Thierry Michel | 2003 | 58 minutes | Color | Farsi | English subtitles
A seemingly minor traffic collision has far-reaching consequences for a medical examiner haunted by the death of a child he might have prevented.
Vahid Jalilvand | 2017 | 104 minutes | Color | Farsi | English subtitles
This musical comedy plays with fact and fiction to depict contemporary Iranian life.
Massoud Bakhshi | 2017 | 68 minutes | Color | English; Farsi | English subtitles
