The Sealed Soil
This page avoids major plot turns, twists, and ending details. It’s designed to help first-time viewers decide if this movie is right for them.What counts as a spoiler can vary by viewer.
A young woman in pre-revolution Iran is caught between the traditional values of her small village and her own yearnings for independence and individuality. Her persistent refusal of marriage proposals coupled with her unseemly removal of her hood causes her family to seek the help of an exorcist, convinced she must be possessed by evil spirits. Made surreptitiously in 1977 just as the Ayatollah Khomeini regime was coming to power, a rough cut of ‘The Sealed Soil” was smuggled out of Iran by the director in a false-bottomed suitcase, and taken to the U.S., where she completed her final cut. The film has never been seen in Iran.
