ROYA

Press Screening: tba
World Premiere: tba
Screenings: tba

92 min. / Germany, Luxembourg, Czechia, Iran 2026 / feature

Director Mahnaz Mohammadi and actresses Melisa Sözen and Maryam Palizban and actor Hamidreza Djavdan are available for interviews.

ROYA by writer-director Mahnaz Mohammadi is world premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival 2026 in the Panorama section.

Made clandestinely and without official permission, ROYA is a timely and deeply resonant drama by the Iranian women’s rights activist and filmmaker. The film follows a teacher imprisoned for her political beliefs, exploring human fragility, resilience, and inner strength in the face of systemic repression under Iran’s authoritarian Islamic Republic regime.

ROYA marks Mohammadi’s return to narrative cinema and her second fiction feature, following Son-Mother (2019), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and screened widely at international festivals. With ROYA, Mohammadi once again asserts cinema as an act of resistance, bearing witness to personal and political realities the regime seeks to silence. The film stars acclaimed Turkish actress Melisa Sözen (Winter Sleep, Le Bureau des Légendes) in the lead role.

SYNOPSIS
Roya, an Iranian teacher imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison for her political beliefs, is faced with a choice: make a forced televised confession or remain confined to her three-square-metre cell. As past and present slip out of sequence and exchange places, she moves between inner landscapes and lived experience, revealing how isolation reshapes perception, identity, and the fragile possibility of resistance.

Mahnaz Mohammadi is an Iranian filmmaker and women’s rights activist. With a strong background in documentary cinema, her work has long captured the struggles and resilience of women in Iran. She has faced repeated persecution for her films and activism, including multiple arrests and a seven-year prison sentence on charges of “endangering national security” and “propaganda against the regime.” She spent several months in detention in Evin prison, and although the sentence was later overturned, she has continued to live under severe restrictions. Her passport was confiscated for ten years, and after her first fiction feature, Son-Mother (2019), she has not been permitted to make films. Made underground, without official permission, Roya marks her return to narrative cinema and her second fiction feature.

ROYA is produced by Farzad Pak at Hamburg-based PakFilm, in coproduction with Europe Media Nest (Czech Republic) and Amour Fou (Luxembourg) and NDR, ARD Degeto Film, Best regards, and SWR. With the support of MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Film Fund Luxembourg.

Production Company:
PakFilm
Farzad Pak
farzadpak@pakfilm.de
www.pakfilm.de

World Sales:
TOTEM
hello@totem-films.com
www.totem-films.com

©/CREDITS:

Stills: © PakFilm