A first feature from Panah Panahi and winner of the Best Film Award at LFF, Hit The Road is set amid the winding desert highways and gorgeous emerald valleys of north-west Iran in which a family takes a road trip to drop their eldest son off at the border.

The young man is Farid (Amin Simiar). He is driving with his family to a meeting spot where masked guides on motorcycles are meant to smuggle him into Turkey. Along for the ride are his mother (Pantea Panahiha), father (Hassan Majooni) and young brother (Rayan Sarlak). Throughout the course of their journey, memories of the past unite them while they simultaneously grapple with fears of the unknown.

Funny, tragic and moving, Hit the Road swerves between tragedy and humour with expert control, skilfully puncturing the gloom and a menacing presence of fear with a hectic, high volume, cross-talking gallows humour that the entire family engages in as a means of solidarity.

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