Since the premiere of Ali Asgari’s Terrestrial Verses, which he co-directed with Alireza Khatami, at the Festival de Cannes, the director was banned from traveling outside Iran. Despite relentless repressive interference, however, filmmakers like Asgari are not easily deterred from practicing their art. In stubborn resistance against his growing pessimism about the way his home city of Tehran is developing, Higher than Acidic Clouds expresses Asgari’s dreams and reflections in countless apocalyptic shades of gray. He muses about his mother’s native language, his sisters who could never see his films in the cinema, and Rome, where he lived for ten years. But, above all else, the filmmaker longs to go outside and fly above the city at a height from which all people are seen as equal. He is left with his memories and imagination, the only things that cannot be confiscated.

Director Ali Asgari

Producer Ali Asgari, Milad Khosravi

Screenwriter Ali Asgari, Ali Shams

Cinematographer Arman Fayaz

Production Designer Melika Gholami

Art Director

Editor Ehsan Vaseghi

Sound Abdolreza Heydari

Music Navid Divan

Color Black and white

Production Company Taat Films, Seven Springs Pictures

International Sales Company Seven Springs Pictures