Iranian director Mohsen Gharaei is bringing his allegorical drama Falling House to the Venice Film Festival's Orizzonti sidebar, a film he describes as a warning about the crisis building in Iran after decades of oppressive rule. The story follows three generations of women in a struggling family facing eviction and dominated by a seemingly mild-mannered father who reveals a darker side when his authority is challenged. Its premiere matters both as a rare piece of Iranian cinema critical of the regime and because of the personal cost to Gharaei, who says he now lives in exile after receiving death threats.

Gharaei first drafted the film in 2018 but says the 2022 Woman Life Freedom protests, sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in police custody, gave him renewed impetus to make it, following a five-year hiatus prompted by government censorship. The cast includes Laleh Marzban, Farhad Aslani, Rima Raminfar and newcomer Elena Khakbaz, with a score by composer Max Richter and producers including Tehran-based Milad Khosravi and Odessa Rae. Gharaei says he has faced a "huge" disinformation campaign and thousands of hostile messages from regime-aligned media after criticising Iran's conduct during the March 2026 bombing campaign with the US and Israel, and warns he would face imprisonment if he returned home. Falling House is one of two Iranian films at Venice this year, alongside Ali Asgari's Golden Lion contender A Bit Of Light.