Rating: NR | Runtime: 105 minutes
Release Date: July 25th, 2024 (Israel) / June 13th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: XYZ Films
Director(s): Guy Nattiv & Zar Amir Ebrahimi
Writer(s): Elham Erfani & Guy Nattiv

We expect your cooperation.

It only seems right that an Israeli and Iranian would collaborate on a film about the political violence wrought by both countries upon their citizens in relation to the other. Director and co-writer (with Elham Erfani) Guy Nattiv originally approached Zar Amir Ebrahimi about acting in his latest film Tatami. Soon, however, she found herself giving more to the production as both a casting director and producer helping to lend the script another authentic Iranian voice (alongside Erfani). The more she and Nattiv discovered their shared cinematic sensibilities, he asked if she would be interested in co-directing. And so, the Israeli living in America and the Iranian exile in France joined forces to lift the veil on the heroism of artists and athletes who dare oppose an oppressive regime.

The story centers on Iran’s judoka champion Leila Hosseini (Arienne Mandi) as she continues her quest for a World Championship gold medal in Tbilisi, Georgia. Everyone is excited for the opportunity—her family, her coach (Ebrahimi’s Maryam Ghanbari), and her home government considering they’ve allowed her the ability to travel to the tournament under their flag. Leila feels good. Determined. Maryam is giving her all too to steward her best competitor towards an honor she never achieved herself due to a career-ending injury. And with two quick and decisive victories in the early rounds, this Cinderella tale is poised to play out just as they’ve imagined. That’s when the phone begins to ring to remind both women how little autonomy they actually possess.

Because winning isn’t the Islamic Republic of Iran’s goal. Sure, it would be a nice bragging-rights-feather in their cap, but their participation is nothing if not a strategic cog in their propaganda machine. It’s meant to soften their image as far as the baked in misogyny of their laws (Leila’s husband, Ash Goldeh’s Nader, must sign her passport granting his permission for her to leave). To show the world that they let women out of the house to pursue their dreams … as long as those dreams service the nation’s reputation. And while one might assume this message is targeting the international community, it is in fact reflecting back upon the Iranian people as a false sense of hope and possibility. As such, Leila’s experience in Georgia must fully adhere to the Supreme Leader’s indoctrination.

Therein lies the issue. It’s one thing for Leila to win the tournament. It’s another to wittingly acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel’s Zionist regime in the process. If Shani Lavi (Lir Katz) had lost early, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Since she is cutting through her opponents at a similar speed as Leila, however, the potential of them meeting on the mat becomes too realistic a chance to take. You can’t have her withdraw right before this possible match either as that would look suspicious. So, it would be better for all involved if she were to get “injured” now and fight another (hopefully Israeli-less) day. It falls on Maryam to relay the message as an extension of their government. The longer it takes to convince Leila, the more brazenly violent Iran will become to scare her into submission.

What begins as a sports drama rapidly turns into a tense thriller as a result. Because it’s not just about the judo matches anymore (which provide riveting suspense themselves in Leila’s underdog pursuit of a championship). Now it’s about survival as Iranian police start targeting families back home with phone calls providing blackmail proof. “Diplomats” begin to make their way behind the scenes of the tournament to turn the screws right under the noses of the WJC representatives tasked to ensure the event is fair and safe for all its athletes (Jaime Ray Newman’s Stacey Travis and Nadine Marshall’s Jean Claire Abriel). And that institution must commence its own protocols to ready for a potential defection should they be approached to provide one.

Unlike the real-life story of Alexander Mogilny’s defection from the Soviet Union—something a Buffalo native like me knows well as a Sabres fan—Nattiv and Ebrahimi are ratcheting up our apprehension by confining everything to a single locale. There’s no opportunity to play a shell game with cars or to utilize embassies as safe havens. And with the advent of telephones and internet, there’s nowhere that someone with nefarious plans cannot go to get at their target. So, there arrives a lot of confusion as these women are forced to make impossible decisions in very little time while plainly visible to their oppressors. It’s one thing for Maryam to slow walk telling Leila in the hopes Lavi loses, but another to risk her own safety by lending support once the cat is out of the bag.

The same goes for Leila. Giving Iran the middle finger when you’re on a hot streak becomes a much more difficult decision when you’re calling your husband to flee the country and receiving proof-of-life videos of your parents begging you to withdraw. And what power does Stacey and Jean Claire truly hold in the grand scheme of things? Iran doesn’t care about threats of being banned from international competitions (it’s done nothing to stop Russia from continuing its invasion of Ukraine and no one has been moral enough to even threaten Israel with the same while their ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people continues unchecked). They can tell Leila that they’ll protect her, but only she knows what Iran is capable of if it turns out they can’t.

Nattiv and Erfani’s script handles this rock and hard place conundrum effectively if for no other reason than their conscious effort to keep things rooted in authenticity. This isn’t Leila against the world without reservations. It isn’t Maryam taking a stand to protect her competitor when no one else will. Those things might eventually happen, but giving them an unwavering, steely resolve to pretend the stakes aren’t life or death would ultimately undercut the potency of them standing up. Don’t expect the grand contrivance of Iran being pitted against Israel for gold to be exploited as an easy dramatic out either. We learn very early on that winning on the mat is meaningless compared to surviving the political and physical violence of daring to get on the mat at all.

Mandi and Ebrahimi are fantastic in their portrayals with every decision holding a betrayal in one hand and possible execution in the other. Add the grittiness of its full frame black and white putting us into the action with tons of close-ups alongside the voyeur paranoia of spies staring down from the bleachers and Nattiv returns to the intensity of his feature debut Skin (the one starring Jamie Bell, not the divisive Oscar-winning short film of the same name) after his more recent, generic effort with Golda. It really does feel like anything can happen on-screen here. That the danger could be stronger if the filmmakers allow it to defeat their characters rather than be defeated by them. Tatami‘s message is one that’s always better absorbed when the stakes never go away.

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Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Arienne Mandi in TATAMI; courtesy of XYZ Films.