Once a week, a husband comes to visit his captive wife who has been detained as a political prisoner in Tehran. Spied on by cameras and microphones, their conversations become increasingly distant, inhibiting their ability to share their daily lives. At his wife’s insistence, the husband agrees to train and guide a young blind woman through a Parisian footrace. As they come to learn more about each other, the unlikely couple grows close and finds a common rhythm. At the race’s end, they set upon a second challenge: can they run the Channel Tunnel to England, covering 38 kilometers in a few hours and avoiding being hit by the first train of the morning? Alternating between the confines of prison and the racer’s unseen road, Blind Runner embraces a hypnotic rhythm scored by the musicality of the Persian language. Director Amir Reza Koohestani augments his signature stripped-down staging with video, letting the spectator’s gaze move freely from the performers’ bodies to their leviathan faces. A poetic vision of the human struggle gradually emerges—one of mutual aid, of the marathon we run without freedom in sight. Presented by St. Ann's Warehouse in partnership with Waterwell.
Part of the 2025 Under the Radar Festival.
