…aka Waiting for Metallica. A man can endure a great deal for the sake of a dream. But expat Iranian novelist Hamid (the spectacularly coiffed Mohsen Namjoo) candidly admits that he has no dreams of his own, that his current mission — to bring together Afghani rock band Kabul Dreams and metal legends Metallica for a jam session at his Persian-language San Francisco radio station — is inspired by his brother’s passion and not his own. And when you’re living on borrowed dreams, it can be hard to endure indignities such as commercial jingles following your heartfelt stories of Iranian expat life, or an interview with Miss Iran USA. A person might become peevish and sour, might even be tempted to wash his hands of the whole affair — or at least sanitize them. Director and scriptwriter Babak Jalali cleverly uses the station’s ramshackle, microbudget operations to highlight the humanity on both sides of the struggle between art and commerce (it’s almost like a wrestling match…) (2016) — Matthew Lickona
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