Private Project

Don't Touch Anything

Leyla, a single mother viciously obsessed with order and tidiness, loses control at a gathering where one of the guests brings her little boy unannounced, leaving him to mess with the house symmetry.

  • Arghavan Heydareslam
    Director
  • Arghavan Heydareslam
    Writer
  • Soroush Hazrati
    Producer
  • Arghavan Heydareslam
    Producer
  • Soroush Hazrati
    Editors
  • Arghavan Heydareslam
    Editors
  • Sadaf Saleh Izadkhast
    Set and Costume Designer
  • Rahime Sarvari
    Make-Up
  • Soroush Hazrati
    Director of Photography
  • Hassan Najafi
    Visual Effect
  • Amin Enteshari
    Visual Effect
  • Hootan Haghshenas
    Color Correction
  • Mohadese Teymoori
    Sound Designer
  • Pouria Farahani
    Sound Recordist
  • Farbod Shahnazar
    First Assistant Director
  • Reyhane Jami
    Continuity
  • Hassan Rasouli
    Programmer
  • Amin Komijani
    Photographer
  • Narsa Bohlouli
    First Assistant Camera
  • Mahdad Tafazoli
    Second Assistant Camera
  • Mehdi Ghafoori
    Assistant Camera
  • Amirhossein Nouroozi
    Composer
  • Alireza Nouroozi
    Musician
  • Kazem Daneshi
    Production Manager
  • Marjan Sadeghi
    Key Cast
    "Leyla"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 26, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    1,400 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
  • Country of Filming:
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
  • Language:
    Persian
  • Shooting Format:
    Cinema DNG
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes
  • 17th VIS Vienna Shorts
    Vienna
    Austria
    May 29, 2020
    International Premier
    International Competition
  • 16th Nahal International Student Short Film Festival
    Tehran
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
    June 13, 2019
    National Premier
    Jury Special Mention
  • Carrousel international du film de Rimouski
    Rimouski
    Canada
    May 15, 2020
    North America
    International Competition
Distribution Information
  • Synesthesia Films
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Arghavan Heydareslam

Born in 1997, Arghavan Heydareslam is doing her final year in Film at Soore university of Tehran, Iran. She’s participated in directing workshops by renowned independent filmmaker Shahram Mokri and editing workshops by Haydeh Safiyari and Sepideh Abdolvahab. Her first short film “Don’t touch anything” won the Special Jury Prize in Nahal Short Film Festival.

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Director Statement

Film has always been a complex medium to me. A medium that takes years and sometimes more than a lifetime for its potentials to be discovered by one. A concept that needs to be conveyed through sounds and images. A thing that is present in the room, can’t be seen but is felt. Hidden feelings that might not even be recognised by the film characters themselves. We experience something through a film that lasts as long as cinema’s lifetime but it could never exist before cinema’s birth. We can never be the characters but also cannot be outside of the film. A first hand experience, encountered through images and a sense of sympathy.
Perhaps my biggest drive for making “don’t touch anything” was to challenge this medium in order to convey an internal notion. An internal notion that impacts one’s surrounding gradually and makes the outside similar to the inside.