The 57th edition of Karlovy Vary International film festival has a number of focuses and one special titled “Another Birth. Iranian Cinema Here and Now”, but Behrooz Karamizade's debut feature “Empty Nets” was selected to compete for The Crystal Globe. This muliti-layered drama is set on the northern Caspian Sea coast, and stars the brilliant Sadaf Asgai as Narges (recently seen in Ali Asgari & Alireza Khatami's Un Certain Regard contender “Terrestrial Verses”) and the charismatic Hamid Reza-Abbasi as Amir.

Karamizade's script revolves around a young man from a working class family whose wish to propose to his big love becomes sabotaged by a number of impediments. Narges comes from a wealthy, influential family with high expectations of a future son-in-law. He should be successfull, respected and cultured, none of which the simple and good-hearted Amir is. At the beginning, the young couple's encounters are unburdened by class differences,...