Subtotals by Mohammadreza Farzad – a meditation on the uncertainties of life
Do you keep a record of your gray hair?
The number of crushes you had on women?
The number of houses, you have owned or rented?
The number of kisses, you have exchanged?
The number of times, you’ve flown in your dreams?
Maybe you have counted, maybe not.
Anyway, does counting make a difference
in a life lived beyond numbers?
Subtotals (Majmouan) is a film about the aftermath that can never be applied to one’s life as a product. Inspired by a short story of the same title by Gregory Burnham and Autoportrait by Edouard Leve, composed fully of 8mm home movies of Iranian society, Subtotals is a meditation on the uncertainties of life that doesn’t hand out any bills.
Subtotals is the first project developed in the context of the Essay Film Studio of the vnLab in Lodz Film School. The world premiere of the essay took place at the IFF Berlinale 2022 as part of the prestigious Forum Expanded section, and the Polish premiere at the Millenium Docs Against Gravity festival. The film essay won the Golden Apricot award at the Yerevan International Film Festival.
Mohammadreza Farzad was Born in 1978 in Iran, Teheran. He started his career as a poet and literary translator. Dozens of books have been published with his translations. His career as a documentary filmmaker started with Into Thin Air and Blames and Flames which premiered at Berlinale, Forum Expanded section. Farzad has been a PhD student at the Film Factory headed by the legendary Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr. His subsequent works premiered at dozens of national and international film festivals and gained numerous awards. Forget-Me-Not Egg (2013) was first shown at Thessaloniki Film Festival, Wedding: A Film (2015) premiered in the “Next Masters” section of the Leipzig Documentary film festival. He has been invited as a jury member to film festivals such as CPH: DOX, Jihlava, Pilsen, DokuBaku, Cinema Verite. He is currently working on his first feature film produced by Radovan Sibert of Pink Production. Majmaouan (Subtotals) is his third-time participation in Berlinale Forum Expanded.