An Iranian refugee, now living in Germany, risks everything in order to retrieve his wife from his homeland in the powerful short film Ba Ham.
A few powerful, political short films have landed on our desks in the last ten years. Some, whilst having good intentions, have failed to make the grade, whilst others have impressed us all with their message and professional filmmaking. Luckily for us, the latest political drama Ba Ham (meaning Together) falls into the latter category.
Pouya (played by Reza Brojerdi) is living in Germany and away from all the fascism and bloodshed that he witnessed in his homeland. Having made political videos about Iran and uploaded them to the internet in the past, Pouya is struggling with self-confidence about releasing his latest videos. Whilst working in a shop with his good friend Erfan (Nazmi Kirik), Pouya is busy saving all of his earnings in order to buy his wife Nikta (Fatima Balaghi) a plane ticket from Iran to live with him in Germany.
Soon, Pouya finds that things are going from awful to worse in Iran, after a plane is brought down by a missile, though misinformation is being spread by the government, resulting in the death of all onboard. This incident leads Pouya to make some desperate decisions, employing smugglers to retrieve his wife for him.
With such a powerful subject matter, director Shahab Habibi handles the short film with great skill and pride. Made on a modest budget of 20,000 Euros, Ba Ham looks and sounds professional throughout its 28 minutes run time.
The cinematography of Ba Ham is really well done. Leon Daniel lenses the film perfectly, with simple shots lit to perfection, especially in the exterior night-time scenes when we see Pouya and Erfan in the car waiting for a meeting with a smuggler. The framing and the colour grading is something you would only expect to see in a big-budget movie, but to see in a short film made for a graduation piece for the Hamburg Media School is something else.
Not one scene in Ba Ham was wasted, and credit has to be given to screenwriter Maurice Sinner. He makes sure that little exposition is used and that the dialogue is tight and impactful and all times. Angela Tippel, acting as the editor for the short, also does extremely well in making sure that each scene and/or shot never overstays its welcome, moving the story along at a pace where the audience never grows tired at what they are witnessing on screen.
Ba Ham is an utterly interesting and professionally made short film that comes highly recommended. If this team can create something so captivating on so little money, I can only imagine what they could do with the backing of a major studio. One can only hope that they are given that chance to shine in the near future.
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