The Stranger and the Fog

Forged in rhythm, ritual, and mysticism, this masterwork by Iranian New Wave legend Bahram Beyzaie is a transfixing allegory shot through with the fear of a mysterious, encroaching force. When a boat carrying a severely wounded man (Khosrow Shojazadeh) drifts onto the shore of a small coastal village, most of the community regards him with suspicion. But the quietly confident Rana (Parvaneh Massoumi), whose husband disappeared a year ago at sea, finds herself drawn to the outsider. The Stranger and the Fog, which was banned in Iran following the 1979 revolution, is a film of overwhelming power, possessing both the epic dimensions of myth and the hallucinatory atmosphere of a dream.

The Stranger and the Fog was restored in 2023 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and the Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata in collaboration with Bahram Beyzaie. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. Special thanks to Ehsan Khoshbakht and Mojdeh Shamsaie.