The 42nd edition of the Torino Film Festival swooped into town the last week of November 2024. Known for its lowkey approach to fanfare and its emphasis on showcasing works by first and second-time directors, such as Ali Asgari, in the main competitive section, this year’s event made some radical turns.
Under the new director Giulio Base, a red carpet was rolled out, and numerous Hollywood luminaries strolled for the gawking public, including Ron Howard, Sharon Stone, and Angelina Jolie. Base promised a “crispy” festival, which he explained as wanting the experience “to be like summer love, in the sense that the people would miss the festival the day after it ended.” In a sense, that’s what most directors would like from their films: a persistence that provokes a lingering desire to ponder and revisit the images and words seen and heard on the screen.
Away from the main chatter and lights, the Torino Film Festival carried on in its more independent vein, and this year, it stepped up its documentary game as well. With 16 films competing in that section, my advice to longtime festival goers and friends who were feeling lost among all the choices was: “Follow the docs…”
My instincts proved correct, and a gem was found among the crowded field in Ali Asgari’s Higher than Acidic Clouds. Asgari is an Iranian filmmaker with numerous shorts and three feature films. He has won numerous awards, and his films have mostly opened at important European festivals such as the Berlinale, Cannes, and International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
In 2023, his Terrestrial Verses, co-directed with Alireza Khatami, premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Festival, the sole Iranian film to play in the Official Selection that year. The satire depicts normal people navigating everyday activities under the cultural, religious, and institutional constraints placed on them. The dialogue and situations are rooted in actual experiences, giving the film a documentary-like sensibility.
After receiving a very warm critical response and a worldwide distribution deal, Ali Asgari returned to his homeland only to have his passport, cell phone, and computer confiscated by the authorities. Apparently, he and his crew were under investigation for having made Terrestrial Verses “without permission”, a broad and often-used accusation by the powers regarding independent artists.
Over eight months, he was “politely” questioned and gradually given back his phone, computer, and, lastly, his passport. It was during this time – while he was cut off from communicating, travellng, and in a certain state of the unknown – that Ali Asgari began jotting down some random thoughts that were coming to him while confined.
The idea for Higher than Acidic Clouds was developed with a friend and theatrical director, Ali Shams, who was also under house arrest in Tehran. Having both studied in Italy, they had a lot in common and decided to create something together. The result is a beautifully crafted meditative piece full of references and stunningly shot in black and white.
Ali Asgari explains his “unconventional” approach to writing Higher than Acidic Clouds in the sense that there was no linear narrative or script; rather, a series of haphazard ideas popped into his head. “During that period when I was blocked, my mind worked like that. I was thinking about very random things, very strange things, and even some memories from my childhood that I had never thought about before. It was like a meditation for me.”
“While you are connected with the internet and this digital world,” he continues, “you are fed information all the time, and you are not given time to think about a lot of things. But, when you don’t have all this media or all this social media, computer or laptop or your mobile, your mind can become free.”
At the screening in Torino, Ali Asgari was at ease before the audience, fielding questions in Italian that he learned while studying and working in Rome. The next day, we met for our interview, in which he kindly offered to speak in his “equally poor English” (not true!) to save my translation time since the interview would be published in English. He is a thoughtful man whose films have an extremely sensitive touch, often exposing and questioning feminine injustices and points of view. In addition, he likes to blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction, inverting the approaches to the genres.
“Many articles about my fiction films state that they are made in a documentary way because they are very realistic fictions. Often, you don’t understand what is the boundary between them,” he says. “I’m interested in breaking these boundaries or pushing boundaries differently. That’s why, when I decided to make [Higher than Acidic Cloud], I didn’t know if I would make a documentary or a fiction. I just freed my mind to write something, to make something that is like a free spirit film.”
Indeed, if Ali Asgari’s fiction films have a documentary sensibility, then his documentary film could be said to have a fictional feel, a kind of memoir movie. In Higher than Acidic Cloud, we journey into Asgari’s mind, imagination, and memories. In a seemingly free association format, his off-camera voice narrates his thoughtful wondering and wandering. The anchor seems to be the big picture window looking out over a very grey Tehran with a big, bubbly, computer-generated cloud, a reminder of an oppressive presence. “The cloud is man-made, but pollution exists in Tehran. It was more metaphoric. Usually, clouds surround the city, but it is on top [of the city] here.”
There are re-enactments of Ali Asgari being questioned in his apartment, views of Tehran, recollections from his childhood about his desire to fly, and his fears. He contemplates his intense love for his mother, her hands that “shield me from acid rain”, respect for his sisters, the complicated relationship with his father, and his time in Rome. Before the lights went down at the screening, Asgari warned the audience, “It’s a slow film, and I invite you to enter into this meditation.” At times, the images may seem random, but the thread of his voice is joining together the pieces of his life into a tapestry that unravels before our eyes.
Ali Asgari wanted to explore poetry and its connection to cinema with Higher Than Acidic Cloud. It comes out in the “poetry-style” words he narrates. He says he has “a very close relationship with poetry. I read a lot of poems. In Iran, poetry is very common. Even at school, you read a lot of poetry; in the streets, there are people who sell you poems. They are called fal and are like fortunes written as poems.”
While cinema is more about telling a story through images, here Asgari felt that coming up with the script “was more like writing something in literature because in literature you see someone is narrating something all the time. Also, the film has this relationship with literature in which one person narrates something. It was very interesting to connect these two mediums, which are usually distinct. Again, like literature, I was creating an atmosphere with writing.” Intertwining written word forms and cinema creates an intriguing and original documentary structure.
Higher Than Acidic Cloud‘s form takes the shape of a puzzle of Ali Asgari’s imagination, that one pieces together, yet there is space to find one’s interpretation and meaning. Sounds often introduce a new thought while the former still lingers in the picture. At one point in a shift from his home in Iran to contemplating his relationship with Rome, one hears a curious dripping and a gradual flow of water. However, the image on the screen is still an interior shot of his apartment. One wonders if there is a leak or if a flood is arriving.
Instead, Ali Asgari explains with a smile, “In Rome, you are always hearing the sound of water falling from everywhere, especially while you’re walking at night. Sometimes, you don’t know where the water is, but what you hear is water, often from fountains. This is characteristic of Rome, and, at the same time, it’s not necessarily touristic as an image. I didn’t want to show Piazza del Popolo full of people and all these things.”
Asgari greatly respects Italy and its cinema, having studied and lived there for ten years. “European and Italian cinema has inspired me a lot; it was very political and about humanity. I was always interested in that aspect and came to Italy to study that.” Fortunately, Asgari’s personal items were reinstated over time, and in the eighth month, he was also given back his passport, allowing him to return to Rome to film those scenes with a small crew. The sequences were filmed at 4 am along empty streets and on circuitous stone staircases, adding to the dreaminess.
Ali Asgari was born and raised in Tehran and loves his city. This affection is shown in Higher Than Acidic Cloud as Tehran is a character similar to the family members he discusses and speaks with. His off-camera voice calls out the city for the changes that have occurred. It is “a city of silent, shapeless buildings, a stranger to me. Everything has turned dark grey. This Tehran has forgotten its green past.”
Seated before me, the director expands on his feelings about his birthplace, “All my films have taken place there, and so Tehran is always like a character. In this film, I used a more emotional approach to the city. When I lived and grew up there, it was quite different from what it is now.”
“Nowadays,” he continues, “[Tehran] has become another city which is less green, and there’s a lot of pollution. Although the cloud in the film is CGI, it doesn’t mean it is not real. If you go there, especially in the winter, and go up above Tehran, you see a lot of pollution. It has been destroyed, and even more so, because all of the green parts of Tehran have been demolished.”
“They have been constructing new buildings,” he says, “and most of them are connected to the Iranian government-like institutions. I always worry about it because Tehran used to be much more beautiful. It’s becoming a very strange city, and I wanted to express this concern for the city.” One can see in hi eyes the depth of his uneasiness about this remarkable and turbulent place.
Ali Asgari comes from a large family with six older sisters and three brothers. He has a close relationship with all his sisters “because I have grown up like their child. They are all older than me and have helped me throughout my life. They are extremely kind, and I have a close relationship with them. We talk a lot, and they have inspired me greatly in my films.”
Yet, none of his sisters have seen his films at the cinema. “I was always sad because [my films] were never screened in Tehran. It is not fair that you make films in which they are the inspiration for [Iranians]. Why are they not able to watch the films? That was something that I wanted to bring into the documentary; it was very important to me.”
Ali Asgari’s way of introducing this issue was to set up a home cinema situation, invite his sisters over, and then film them as they watched his movies. This scene is followed up by off-camera commentary and criticism by each sister while the women are each seen with the films projected onto their bodies. It is a beautiful, intriguing sequence, giving the siblings space to comment naturally while also recognizing them and their bodies.
“In Iran, the body of the woman is still very taboo. Talking about the body of a woman or the femininity of a woman is always taboo, and you cannot discuss these things even in film. I emphasized placing the films on their bodies because it becomes like they are about them and their bodies. There is this system, even in my family, for example, my father, who was always trying to control their bodies and to control what they wore. There are these rules in Iranian society that are still controlling women’s bodies a lot. So, for me, it was very important to mention their bodies.”
In addition to women’s bodies, Higher Than Acidic Cloud pays particular attention to Ali Asgari’s body. Ali Asgari is often filmed in his apartment, seated at his table or looking out of his large picture window. In one scene, the camera slowly pans along his body, delineating its form as he lays calmly, hands folded, on the couch in his living room.
In response to my noting this sequence, Asgari points out, “It’s all the same: being a man doesn’t mean you’re free to express your actual body. An article by Michel Foucault about body politics and biopolitics discusses how all the controls and all the politics in society start with the control of the body, of people’s bodies. When you control the body of the people, it starts this more intense control.
“In my [Terrestrial Verses], I also mentioned the body of a human being, how this body that you have belongs to you, or how other people can take control of your body. So that’s what I was talking about in the film, and I’m happy that you got it.” Specifically, Foucault’s term refers to “the intersection between power (political, economic, judicial, etc.) and the individual’s bodily autonomy.” In this way, Ali Asgari was placed in a holding pattern; he could not leave Iran, but fortunately, his mind could travel.
A key theme emerging early in Higher Than Acidic Cloud is maintaining free thoughts. The narrator calmly states in his description of the confiscators who have taken his devices, “Your hands cannot grab my imagination.” Interestingly, instead of focusing on his lack of freedom, Ali Asgari insists, “We have these really powerful tools with us. To me this means that we have this imagination within our body, it’s a something that nobody can control. It is a very prestigious and valuable thing we all have in our lives.”
Listening to Ali Asgari discuss the significance of imagination, the words of the Iranian writer and professor Azar Nafisi come to mind. Towards the end of her memoir Reading Lolita in Teheran, published in 2003, she declares, “I have come to believe that genuine democracy cannot exist without the freedom to imagine and the right to use imaginative works without any restrictions. To have a whole life, one must have the possibility of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue between the public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared?”
As democracy in the US and its freedoms begin to be threatened in 2025, these thoughts seem timely and relevant for navigating our way forward. Azar Nafisi’s important idea also sets the tone for Ali Asgari’s positive approach to being unable to move freely in physical spaces. He says, “[Higher Than Acidic Cloud] is more a celebration than something sad. Because it is more a celebration of life, imagination, fantasies, dreams, and how dreams and reimagination can play a role in our lives and how it can make us free.”
The director is intent on acknowledging the gift of the mind and how our thoughts can continue travelling and reinventing themselves even under duress. “I wanted to celebrate that point rather than making something sad out of it and I wanted to express this very simply. The power of the imagination is higher than everything. It’s more important than everything so it can fly and go higher than these dark clouds controlling us.”
Though a slim 71 minutes, this personal hybrid essay of a film packs a lasting punch that does so poetically instead of pugnaciously. The mix of memories and impressions gives the audience a way into Ali Asgari’s imagination and private thoughts about his past and present. Through monochrome images and casual, veiled references to a regime that seeks control over its people, the director quietly calls out unfair practices but without pointing fingers or doing so illegally. Women are properly veiled, and filming has occurred in places without overstepping the permit requirements.
Higher Than Acidic Cloud received high praise throughout its 2024 film festival run, with its premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Hopefully, a streaming option for viewing this gem will be announced soon. Ali Asgari insists on living in Tehran, where his family resides, in the city he loves. Despite constant risks, he would rather remain authentic in his filmmaking and continue to be part of this resistance.
Following in the footsteps of generations of high-quality Iranian auteur filmmaking, the likes of Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, and Asghar Farhadi, Ali Asgari prefers to concentrate on his path of making films that speak up using the cinematographic language in which he is deeply versed. Constantly pushing genre borders and inventing new ways of telling stories, Asgari is an exciting young voice of the Iranian cinema tradition. While his sumptuous imagery and personal observations linger long after Higher Than Acidic Cloud ends, we look forward to absorbing the imaginative power of his voice and vision in his next film.