Fri May 25 | 7:00 pm | VIFC

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Director: Nima Sarvestani, Sweden, 2006, 52 minutes
Farsi/Swedish with English subtitles

Rarely does a film title so aptly and thoroughly summarize the plot. On street corners and town squares young men and women can be found holding signs. One of them reads: Immediate offer! Kidney for sale, young man, 22, healthy, blood type O positive. Tel. 09122…

Iran is a country that not only permits the for-profit sale of human organs, but also regulates more than one hundred Kidney Procurement Agencies. Every ten minutes, a hopeful young man or woman appears at the entrance of one of these official agencies, hoping to cash in a body part for what works out to be about six months worth of wages.

With an impressive level of disclosure from both the individuals and the institutions involved, director Nima Sarvestani delivers a fascinating exposé on the business of kidney trafficking. The film follows the story of several characters, both buyers and sellers, as they first enter the kidney referral agency and clinic. We see them as they are introduced to their donor or recipient, as they haggle over the going rate for 100 grams of flesh, and eventually as they lay in hospital beds awaiting their operations. Each person has a sobering story to tell about mounting money problems and failing health that has forced them to participate in this absurd trade, in which people buy and sell body parts as if they were any marketable commodity.

Preceded by:

World on Fire

Music Video, Artist: Sarah McLachlan, Canada, 2003, 4 minutes
– See curator's essay Rockumentaries