''From Karkheh to Rhein'' ( fa, از کرخه تا راین, Az Karkheh tā Rāīn) is a 1993

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

film written and directed by

Ebrahim Hatamikia Ibrahim (also spelled Ibraheem) ( ar, إبراهيم, ) is the Arabic name of the prophet and patriarch Abraham and one of Allah's messengers in the Quran. It is a common first name and surname among Muslims and Arab Christians, a cognate of t ...

starring Ali Dehkordi and

Homa Rousta Homa Rousta ( fa, هما روستا ‎; 26 September 1946 – 26 September 2015) was an Iranian film and stage actress. She was the widow of stage director Hamid Samandarian. She graduated with a degree in theatre from the School of Dram ...

. The film is first German-Iranian co-production.

Plot

Saeed is an

Iran–Iraq war The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations S ...

victim of

chemical weapon A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...

s who heads to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

for Eye surgery and comes across his sister, Leila, who has been living in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

with her husband and son, Jonas for many years. Saeed gets his sight back after the surgery and tries to cope with the new and strange atmosphere around him. Saeed is getting ready to come back to Iran but everything goes wrong. Further examinations show that he suffers from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

. His disease has apparently resulted from chemical gases used by Iraq and sold by Germany in the war. When Saeed's sister finds out about his disease, she tries to prevent any situation which will cause him stress, as the doctors advised. But Saeed becomes very ill when he watches the video of the funeral of Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, which was recorded by his brother in law. So, they take him to the hospital and he dies there while doing

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...

. This happens while Saeed's wife and his newly born baby are coming to Germany to meet him. The last scene of the film shows that the family of Saeed's sister is going back to Iran with his wife.

Cast

* Ali Dehkordi as Saeed * Homa Rusta as Leila *Heinz Neumann as Leila's Husband *Asghar Naghizadeh as Basiji *Sadegh Safayi as Basiji *Farzaneh Asgari *Parviz Sheikhtadi *Noorbert Hanzing *Nikel Gril *Andreas Kurtz *Majid Safavi

Soundtrack

The music of the film was written and performed by Iranian composer Majid Entezami who later had collaboration with Hatamikia in ''

The Glass Agency ''The Glass Agency'' ( fa, آژانس شیشه‌ای) is a 1998 Iranian drama film written and directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia, and one of his most successful works and one of the most popular and controversial films of post-revolutionary Iranian ...

'' and ''

The Scent of Joseph's Coat ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

.''

Track listing

References

Exiternal links