Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness

Abstract

Maryam (Sadaf Asgari) a young woman in her 20s, is strong-armed by her mother into appearing on the show “Joy of Forgiveness” on the Iranian winter solstice holiday Yalda. The widely watched “Joy of Forgiveness” is convicted murderer Maryam’s one chance to avoid being executed for the killing of her husband, a decades-older ad agency executive. If Maryam’s story resonates, she could stay alive. But she has many people to convince: not just the show’s producer, host, and control room, but also its studio audience, the 30 million viewers watching at home, and, most importantly, her husband’s only child and Maryam’s former friend Mona (Behnaz Jafari).