Banned by both the Shah and the Ayatollah, Bahman Farmanara‘s haunting TALL SHADOWS OF THE WIND fuses ethnographic realism with Lewtonian terror in a mesmerizing study of fear, power, and idolatry.

In a rural village, locals erect a scarecrow to guard their fields only to watch their creation turn against them, sowing superstition, paranoia, and dread. What begins as a modest anthropological tableau unfolds into a haunting reflection on authority and human folly, where fear emanates as much from social control as from the uncanny. Farmanara directs with quiet mastery, balancing atmospheric folk horror with neorealist observation.

Culminating in a thorny provocation that likely sealed its fate with censors, TALL SHADOWS OF THE WIND endures as an elegantly nightmarish parable, with its premise anticipating DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW, and its eerie, resigned ending resonating with the disillusionment of historical upheaval. Spectral Cinema is proud to exhume this all-but-impossible-to-see gem, a politically resonant and formally daring testament to the imaginativepossibilities of filmmaking under authoritarian rule, its urgency undimmed by time.

Tickets are $10 at the door. Cash or Venmo accepted.

Doors: 6:30 p.m. | Showtime: 7:00 p.m. Film runs 1 hour, 51 minutes.

ABOUT SPECTRAL CINEMA:

Spectral Cinema is a collaboration between programmers Dan Santelli and Adrianna Gober..