Cause of Death: Unknown (Persian: علت مرگ: نامعلوم, romanized: Ellat-e Marg: Nâmaloum); is a 2023 Iranian drama road movie written and directed by Ali Zarnegar and produced by Majid Barzegar. Starring Banipal Shoomoon, Alireza Sanifar, and Neda Jebraeili, the film follows seven passengers traveling across Iran’s Lut Desert whose overnight journey is disrupted when one of them dies suddenly, forcing the group into a tense moral dilemma after discovering a hidden sum of money on the body.
The film premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival on 13 June 2023, where it won the Best Cinematography Award in the Asian New Talent Competition. It later screened at major international festivals such as the Hof International Film Festival in Germany, the Torino Underground Cinefest in Italy, and the Iranian Film Festival Zurich, where it won the Golden Cyrus Cylinder for Best Feature Film.
Zarnegar received multiple national honors, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay from the Iran’s Film Critics and Writers Association in 2025. In the same year, Cause of Death: Unknown was selected by the Farabi Cinema Foundation as Iran’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
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