Iran | "Seven Days" in the cinema: Things that don't fit in a suitcase

"What if she doesn't want to fly with us? Are you trying to force her?" asks ten-year-old Alborz (Sam Vafa) as he and his father pack their suitcases. He already has a hunch at the start of the trip. Does his mother even want to be picked up? Does she want to come with him to Hamburg? The older daughter, Dena (Tanaz Molaei), is reluctantly persuaded to come. "If it were important to her, she would come to us after all these years," she says.

For six years, her mother Maryam (Vishka Asayesh) has been incarcerated in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. Now she's allowed to leave for seven days to receive medical treatment. During these seven days, she'll face a decision: return to her family in Germany or return to prison? Her brother (Sina Parvaneh) and her husband Behnam (Majid Bakhtiari) have already planned their escape. Behnam and the children plan to wait for her in a small mountain village in Turkey.

Maryam doesn't know anything about this yet. As soon as she arrives at her mother's apartment, she picks up the phone and talks to someone about a strike. Immediately, the human rights activist is back in the hamster wheel of resistance, wanting to serve her country and improve it. Escape wasn't part of her plan. And yet, not long later, she's huddled in the trunk of an old school friend's car—the first stop on the journey to her family. She reveals her inner conflict: "There are things that don't fit in a suitcase." What she has in her country, what she's fighting for, she can't take with her to Hamburg.

The story continues on a tour bus, where an unknown woman takes her escape cell phone and slips her another one. What's happening? Is she on the right path? Maryam's nighttime escape resembles a dark crime thriller with an uncertain outcome. She is passed from one place to the next almost wordlessly. The scenes convey fear and tension, bringing the vastness of the country and the hardships of the escape to life.

Protest and rebellion not only require individual strength, but can also be a test of strength for families.

Eventually, Maryam, accompanied by a village teacher, makes her way through the deep snow on horseback in the equally beautiful and threatening mountains between Iran and Turkey. The reunion with her family is hesitant, warm, and exuberant. It is marked by both uncertainty and deep joy – and is overshadowed by Maryam's secret decision not to go to Germany, but to return to prison.

In "Seven Days," director Ali Samadi Ahadi ("The Green Wave") intensely addresses the inner conflict of political activists and the difficult question: "To stay or to go?" He himself fled to Germany alone in 1985 at the age of twelve to escape forced recruitment as a child soldier in the First Gulf War. "Seven Days" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024 and is now showing in German cinemas. For security reasons, large parts of the film were not shot in Iran or Turkey as planned, but in Georgia. Some scenes were filmed covertly in Iran.

The screenplay was written by Mohammad Rasoulof , the director of "Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree," which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2025 as Germany's entry. It tells the story of the family life of an investigating judge in Tehran. Like "Seven Days," it vividly depicts how political conflicts in an authoritarian regime affect private life—more specifically, the immediate family. Protest and rebellion not only demand individual strength but can also be a test of endurance for families. Both films sensitively depict the emotional impact this has on the lives of young people torn between solidarity with their parents and their own needs.

Rasoulof had secretly filmed "Seed of the Sacred Fig Tree" in Iran and had just finished it when he was sentenced to prison and decided to flee his homeland in early 2024. The idea for "Seven Days," however, is older—and arose from his own reflections on how to reconcile responsibility for family and one's country.

The result is a film that highlights the amount of self-sacrifice that political activism can entail—and how children, in particular, suffer as a result. This naturally raises the question of what would be different if Maryam were a man. Would the pressure and expectations of fulfilling her parental role be the same?

The film's acting is convincing – whether it's Majid Bakhtiari as the sad-faced, understanding husband Behnam or Tanaz Molaei as the angry, vulnerable daughter. Vishka Asayesh plays a rough, determined Maryam, who at times puzzles both her family and the audience. Is it understandable to undertake a life-threatening escape just to see her family briefly, reopen all the wounds, and then disappear? Ultimately, it's questions like these that make the film interesting and demonstrate that decisions in extreme situations aren't always consistent and understandable.

However, there are some irritating details that tarnish the authenticity: How does the lead actress manage to wear accurate makeup during a nerve-wracking and exhausting escape? And how can her escape helper constantly look to the side in the car and still drive straight ahead? Despite such inconsistencies, "Seven Days" is a gripping film that conveys the protagonist's inner conflict. The decision to focus on her family and personal conflict is understandable. To empathize with her motivation, it would certainly be helpful to not just hint at her activism. Thus, she is presented as a political figure, but not fleshed out.

"Seven Days," Germany 2024. Directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi, written by Mohammad Rasoulof. Starring: Vishka Asayesh, Majid Bakhtiari, Tanaz Molaei, Sam Vafa, and Sina Parvaneh. 115 min. Now in theaters.