In the deadbeat Iranian ghost town of Bad City, a lone female vampire with kohl-brimming eyes and a floating hijab searches for prey.
One of the town’s residents is Arash, who through a series of events involving his junkie father, a prostitute and a drug-dealing pimp, encounters the enigmatic bloodsucker and an unlikely love story begins to unfold.
With a languorous insistence on visual mood, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night‘s starkly shot black-and-white world is a monochromatic evocation overflowing with equally compelling ideas. Filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour is a painter, a sculptor, comic book creator and the lead singer in a rock band. She is also of Iranian descent, born in London and residing in LA.
With clear nods to the work of her favourite filmmakers, Jim Jarmusch and David Lynch, Amirpour skilfully brings her disparate influences together in a film that defies characterisation.
If you’ve never seen a feminist Iranian spaghetti western before, now is the time!