Writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof (Head Wind, The White Meadows, Iron Island) has been an outspoken critic of artistic censorship in Iran throughout his career, earning him a ban on making films, similar to his colleague Jafar Panahi (Offside, This Is Not a Film, Closed Curtain). Nonetheless, he has managed to extend his remarkable body of work with this drama based on real-life events.

This highly charged political thriller draws on real events to tell a unfortunately common tale or repression in contemporary Iran. Kasra, an Iranian author who's been secretly writing his memoirs, is under strict monitoring by the country's security service. His stories are related to his time in jail as a political prisoner and to other events connected to his life as an intellectual in Iran. After preparing his writings to be published as a book, Kasra gets ready to leave the country, but the security service apparatus uncovers his plan. Next on their agenda: Destroy his manuscripts.