Squatters live on a mothballed oil tanker in the Persian Gulf. The children attend a school on board; men harvest scrap metal and old oil in the hull; women keep house and raise children and Captain Nemat runs it all with an iron hand. We follow a lad who rescues fish trapped in the hull, an old man who stares at the sun, the idealistic teacher, and Ahmad, the Captain's assistant who has fallen in love with a young woman whose father wants to marry her to someone of means. What future has this sinking city?
Direction
Rasoulof builds a complete society in 86 minutes
Cinematography
The rusted hull becomes a character—beautiful and suffocating
Acting
Ali Nasirian's Nemat: charismatic, monstrous, weirdly sympathetic
Director
Mohammad Rasoulof
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot on an actual decommissioned tanker in the Persian Gulf, Rasoulof cast real shipbreakers alongside professionals. The Iranian government later banned him from filmmaking.
The tanker mirrors Iran itself under authoritarian rule—a system that provides just enough survival to justify total control, where even escape attempts become part of the machinery.
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