The Night is a psychological thriller that follows an Iranian couple, Babak and Neda, and their one-year-old daughter, Shabnam. Returning home from a friend's gathering, Babak drives drunkenly, too stubborn to let Neda drive with a suspended license. When Babak's driving threatens the safety of the family, Neda insists they stay the night at a hotel. Once they check-in, Babak and Neda find themselves imprisoned, forced to face the secrets they've kept from each other. And though the clock moves forward, "the night" never ends.
The Night went into production in the US in 2018, at the onset of Trump's Iran sanctions imposition, employing a diverse cast and crew made up of predominantly Iranian immigrants or US-born Iranian-Americans. All department heads leading the production, from production through post, are Iranian or of Iranian descent. The Night employed Iranians in leadership roles in all key creative positions above and below the line, both lead acting roles, while being US-produced.
Iranians are so underrepresented, they are combined with a number of other ethnic backgrounds in both AMPAS' classifications and the US Census as "Middle Eastern", despite Iran’s cinema and cultural heritage being one of the most significant in global cinema's history.
Shot on location in the US, The Night recently received a license for theatrical release in Iran, making it the first US-produced film to do so since the Iran revolution, which Deadline called "a historic benchmark".
