Private Project

MITOSIS

Kaveh, a gifted but isolated sculptor in Tehran, lives trapped between his art and his forbidden identity as a gay man. His workshop is both sanctuary and prison—where he channels his loneliness into angular, tormented statues. His strained relationship with Farhad, his latest lover, is crumbling under the weight of societal repression and Kaveh’s own inability to reconcile physical desire with emotional intimacy.

One night, as Kaveh chips away at a new statue, he hears it whisper—indistinct, almost rhythmic, like a distorted echo of his own thoughts. At first, he dismisses it as exhaustion, but the whispers grow louder, more insistent. They mirror his subconscious: fragments of guilt, yearning, and the unspoken words he could never share with Farhad.

When Kaveh abruptly ends things with Farhad (like all his past relationships), Farhad retaliates by shattering the only statue they created together—a symbol of their fractured connection. This act triggers Kaveh’s obsession. He works feverishly, day and night, as the whispers guide his chisel. The statue takes shape: a grotesque yet beautiful figure, its mouth parted mid-sentence, its limbs twisted as if frozen mid-embrace.

As the statue nears completion, Kaveh’s grip on reality slips. The whispers now feel like Farhad’s voice, or perhaps his own. In his final act, Kaveh sands the statue’s surface until it gleams—only to realize his own skin has turned to stone. The camera lingers on two identical figures: the statue, now "perfect," and Kaveh, himself now a sculpture, forever trapped in the act of creation.

  • RAHA ZAHRA HAJIZEINAL
    Director
  • ALI SAFARI
    Writer
  • SORAN KARIMI
    Producer
  • ANAHITA MOUGOUEI
    Producer
  • MEHDI ABOOHAMZEH
    Key Cast
    "Kaveh"
  • FARID ZANGI
    Key Cast
    "Farhad"
  • Hanif Parandeh
    Cinematograper
  • Ali Safari
    Set Designer
  • Morteza Maleknia
    Costume Designer
  • Hanif Parandeh
    Edit, Colorist, Music
  • Meisam Motamedi
    Sound
  • Soheil Hosein Khani
    Sound
  • Raha Hajizeinal
    Make-Up Artist
  • Ali Mohammadi
    Camera first Asisstant
  • Navid Panahi
    Camera second Asisstant
  • Javad Taghizadeh
    Best Boy
  • Farid Zangi
    First director assistant
  • Ghazaal Gholamiii
    Script Superviser
  • Alireza Salmanian
    Stagehand
  • Reza Javidi
    Photographer
  • Parisa Tavakoli
    Photographer
  • Amirhossein Yaghmouri
    Behind the scene
  • Amin Ghanbari
    Graphic
  • Saeed Zamani
    Unit production manager
  • Asif Ghasemi
    The Production assistant
  • Farshad Hassani
    PRODUCTION IT SUPPORT
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    19 minutes 59 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 31, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    9,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Iran
  • Country of Filming:
    Iran
  • Shooting Format:
    XVAC 4K, 422 10 BIT
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.2:35
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - ELMI KARBORDI UNIVERSITY
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - RAHA ZAHRA HAJIZEINAL

Raha Hajizeinal (born May 26, 1987, Tehran) is an Iranian actor, writer, and filmmaker whose work spans cinema and theater with a focus on identity, social constraint, and marginalized narratives. She began her artistic career while studying cinema at university and later expanded into theater directing and screenwriting, establishing a cross-disciplinary practice grounded in bold thematic inquiry.

Film Career
Hajizeinal has directed three films to date, including her forthcoming feature Mitosis, a psychological drama examining identity formation and marginalization within contemporary Iranian society. Her earlier film Niaz received the Best Director award at the Iranian National Youth Festival, affirming her emergence as a distinctive cinematic voice.

She began working professionally in cinema under the direction of Alireza Amini and has since contributed to several notable productions, including Asphyxia, Shabash, Maman, No. 9, Blue Whale, and Like a Nightmare. Her work reflects a sustained engagement with character-driven storytelling and the emotional architectures of social pressure.

Theater Work & International Recognition
In 2021, Hajizeinal presented two stage works—Holodomor and Auschwitz—at the Lviv Theater Festival in Ukraine. Both productions were met with critical attention for their stark, uncompromising treatment of historical trauma. Her work was honored with the Special Jury Prize at the Golden Lion Theater Festival (Lviv), positioning her as a director capable of navigating complex political and emotional landscapes on the international stage.

Artistic Vision
Across mediums, Hajizeinal’s artistic practice interrogates the boundaries imposed by social norms, shining a light on individuals and experiences often marginalized within Iranian cultural discourse. Her films and theatrical works foreground intimate, emotionally raw narratives that examine oppression, resilience, and the fragile process of self-definition. Through a combination of visual minimalism and psychological depth, she seeks to provoke dialogue and challenge inherited assumptions about identity and belonging.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

A Voice for the Marginalized

I come from a society built on binaries—where identity is either sanctioned or condemned, and where deviation from prescribed norms often carries social, emotional, and even physical consequences. In such an environment, entire groups—women, LGBTQ+ individuals, artists, and other minorities—are pushed to the periphery. Authenticity becomes an act of risk, and visibility a form of defiance.

Mitosis emerges from this reality.

Kaveh, the film’s protagonist, is a sculptor whose art is inseparable from his inner life. Every piece he creates becomes an extension of his desires, his anxieties, and the identity he is never permitted to claim publicly. His queerness does not function in the film as a label or a plot device; it is the silent gravitational force around which his emotional world is organized. In Kaveh, I see countless people in my country—individuals who live in secrecy, whose most human impulses are weaponized against them.

Formally, the film is constructed as an intimate psychological study. The camera observes Kaveh in close proximity, privileging texture, gesture, and the physicality of sculpting as metaphors for self-division. The title Mitosis refers not only to the biological act of splitting but also to the fragmentation imposed upon marginalized people: the self they reveal, the self they conceal, and the self they are forced to abandon. My approach to mise-en-scène and light underscores this fragmentation—spaces that appear safe but feel suffocating, moments of tenderness shadowed by the threat of exposure.

Despite its quietness, the film is political—not through slogans, but through the insistence on portraying a marginalized life with dignity and emotional depth. I want viewers to see Kaveh not as an anomaly, but as a reflection of a shared human condition: the universal desire to love, to create, and simply to exist without fear.

Ultimately, Mitosis is my response to a culture that labels difference as danger. It is a plea for recognition, an attempt to restore visibility to those pushed into silence, and a reminder that artists and minorities are not social threats but integral parts of a society’s emotional and cultural fabric.

My hope is that the film generates empathy where there is prejudice, curiosity where there is judgment, and, above all, a space for marginalized voices to be seen and acknowledged.