MORTICIAN, the latest feature film by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Abdolreza Kahani, has been officially selected for the 25th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), one of Eastern Europe’s leading film festivals, taking place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The film will screen as part of “The Pitch Black Anthology,” a special program dedicated to black comedy, transgressive humour, and films that transform discomfort into art.
In its official announcement, the festival described the section as “a brief history of going too far,” bringing together films and filmmakers known for pushing the boundaries of satire, absurdity, psychological tension, and dark humour. TIFF stated that the selected works are films that “turned discomfort into art and the unspeakable into comedy,” adding that some of them “caused scandals at Cannes” while others “still shock.”
Within this curated program, MORTICIAN is presented alongside works and filmmakers associated with some of the most influential traditions of black comedy and surrealist cinema, including Luis Buñuel, the Coen Brothers, Pedro Almodóvar, Quentin Dupieux, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Anders Thomas Jensen, Jan Komasa, and Todd Rohal. The lineup also includes landmark titles such as The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Delicatessen.
The festival’s official description of MORTICIAN reads:
“Shot entirely on an iPhone, Mortician (dir. Abdolreza Kahani, 2025) introduces us to an Iranian man living in Canada who prepares bodies for burial according to Islamic rites. When the company he works for shuts down and he faces the prospect of returning home, he comes into contact with a famous Iranian singer who plans to livestream her own suicide on social media as a protest against the Tehran regime. Their encounter, however, changes both their plans.”
TIFF’s presentation positions the film within a cinematic lineage of politically charged black comedy and psychologically unsettling contemporary cinema. The festival emphasized that the films in the program are “funnier than they have any right to be,” framing MORTICIAN as part of a body of work that explores moral discomfort, exile, absurdity, and social tension through dark humour and formal risk-taking.
Founded in 2002, the Transilvania International Film Festival is the first and largest feature film festival in Romania and has become one of the most internationally visible film events in Eastern Europe.
