Sahel, an Iranian poet victim of a vendetta, is thrown in prison during the Islamic Revolution along with his wife Mina. Released with no explanation after ten years, Mina learns that her husband is dead. Grief-stricken, she leaves Iran and moves with her two children to Istanbul. But Sahel is alive and well. And twenty years later when he’s released in turn, he goes in search of his loved ones – the family whose memory helped sustain him through the years. But will reality measure up to the dream? Inspired by the tragic true story of a friend, Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi (A Time for Drunken Horses, No One Knows About Persian Cats) takes the leap into fiction, creating a haunting and compellingly dreamlike atmosphere through which three decades of his nation’s history are distilled. In this politically charged work that’s also a reflection on the power of art, Ghobadi, filming here for the first time outside of Iran, crafts emotion with the delicacy and precision of a goldsmith. Beautifully staged, Rhino Season also features captivating and moving performances from Iranian superstar Behrouz Vossoughi and the sublime Monica Bellucci.