Cast Aside the Clouds Celebrates Forbidden Love at the Thessaloniki Film Festival
Selected for the 66th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Cast Aside the Clouds tells the story of Love as Defiance. Faith as Resistance. These are the twin forces at play in Cast Aside the Clouds as Layla, a young Bahá’í woman, and Sasan, a secular Muslim doctor, fall in love under the watchful eyes of a repressive regime in modern-day Iran. Their romance is at once tender and dangerous — an act of protest against a society where even affection can be a crime.
Cast Aside the Clouds, directed by Mary Darling with co-directors Bre Vader and Felicia Sobhani, is a Canada–Greece co-production between WestWind Pictures and GravityBreath Pictures. Although set in Tehran, it was shot almost entirely in Athens, whose layered architecture and dusky light lent itself beautifully to standing in for Iran’s capital.
Darling, who co-wrote and produced the film with long-time collaborator Clark Donnelly, describes it as “the most meaningful work we’ve ever done — a story that speaks not just to persecution, but to the universal human search for truth.”
A Canadian Dream, Realized in Greece
When the script was ready, WestWind Pictures — best known for the beloved CBC comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie — considered several international locations. But it was producer Steven Solomos (Crimes of the Future, Seven Veils) who steered the production toward Greece.
“The Athens landscape offered a poetic echo of Tehran,” says Darling. “It was a revelation — Greece became both our muse and our refuge.”
Filming in Greece also made the project a kind of homecoming. As Darling puts it, “To premiere in Thessaloniki, a city with its own history of exile and endurance, feels profoundly right.”
Director Mary Darling with Parmiss Sehat on location in Athens ©Nikolopoulos
A Universal Story of Resilience
While Cast Aside the Clouds begins as an intimate love story, it unfolds into a broader meditation on freedom, belief, and identity. “For the first time, a Bahá’í woman stands at the center of a film — not as a symbol, but as a full human being,” Darling notes.
Greek co-producer Panos Kouanis of GravityBreath Pictures calls the film “a powerful reminder that love and truth can endure even under oppression.”
Producers Payam Zamani and Shahin Sobhani, both of Bahá’í heritage, speak of the project’s urgency. “This story is personal,” Zamani reflects. “It mirrors what it meant to grow up Bahá’í in Iran. It’s time these stories were seen and heard.”
A Meeting of Worlds
The film’s stellar international cast includes Parmiss Sehat, Behtash Fazlali, Anthony Azizi, and Shirin Youssefian Maanian — Iranian actors from across Canada, the U.S., Greece, France, and the U.K.
Supported by the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center and the Hellenic Film Commission, Cast Aside the Clouds bridges continents — a cinematic meeting point between Athens and Tehran, between love and rebellion.
Production: WestWind Pictures (Canada) & GravityBreath Pictures (Greece). Producers: Clark Donnelly, Steven Solomos, Payam Zamani, Shahin Sobhani, Panos Kouanis
Directed by: Mary Darling, Bre Vader, Felicia Sobhani
Catch the film’s Thessaloniki premiere on October 31 at 4 p.m. at the John Cassavetes Theatre, followed by a Q&A with director Mary Darling and the cast.
