Cast Aside the Clouds: Film & Q&A

Cast Aside the Clouds is an internationally award-winning love story set in present-day Tehran. Denied access to university because of her Baha’i faith, Layla continues her studies through an underground university. When her father’s bookstore is attacked, her life becomes entwined with that of Sasan, a Muslim neurologist with a promising future. As love grows between them, he begins to question the beliefs and prejudices that have shaped his world. Layla’s arrest forces him to choose between the security of the life he has planned and the uncertain path his conscience calls him to follow.

Intimate and quietly powerful, Cast Aside the Clouds explores love across a deeply entrenched divide and the constructive resilience that sustains hope amid injustice. It is a story of how the courage to see beyond inherited prejudice can transform two lives and open possibilities neither could have imagined alone.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director, co-writer, and producer, Mary Darling, and co-director Bre Vader.

Film duration: 115 minutes