Chess of the Wind

Banned and thought lost for decades, this gothic 1976 Persian chamber piece involving murderous Iranian haves and have-mores was acclaimed as a major rediscovery at the 2020 New York Film Festival. In a decadently sumptuous, candlelit mansion setting, a dead mother’s riches trigger family warfare—and illicit desires—between a wheelchair-bound daughter, a monstrous stepfather, a maid, and more. With ornate interior set designs and a brilliantly discordant score by trailblazing female composer Sheyda Gharachedaghi, this endlessly surprising work of aristocratic horror is simply, as the London Film Festival notes, “a revelation.”