Golnaz, a 23-year-old immigrant Iranian girl, tries to cope with her new life in Germany.
She finds a pack of Saffron that reminds her of home. Golnaz cooks some rice to add saffron, a heartwarming dish from her past. but she didn’t expect that this moment would bring her back into the most traumatic events of her life.Three years ago she survived a tragic drowning that took away her family while traveling illegally in a boat.
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A deeply empathetic experience / While bombs rain on Iran, a deeply needed empathetic experience.
Less than 5 gr of Saffron tackles a subject we think we’ve already seen too much of : the often tragic circumstances under which many migrants flee their home countries in search of a better future. A hundred times, stories of shipwrecks, a hundred times the numbers of those drowned at any given moment have filled our screens, anonymous people who disappear from our memories with a snap of the fingers.
Yet the director’s uniquely intimate approach touches something deeply personal within us. She evokes our capacity to identify profoundly with a survivor by placing her in a universally familiar, everyday situation—preparing a meal. What might seem trivial becomes essential: can one relive trauma to awaken to a new life?
The director turns our attention to the aftermath, to the moment when safety is finally achieved, and one can permit oneself to exist without fear. Throughout this authentic immersion, it is her protagonist, Golnaz, who guides us toward self-reflection. Our proximity to Golnaz is absolute: we experience almost everything through her perspective as she cooks (we become Golnaz!), and step by step, as the recipe unfolds, we are overwhelmed alongside her by the resurgence of trauma.
In today’s extremely violent context, Less than 5 gr of Saffron helps to rekindle within us a common humanity, whether we have experienced such trauma firsthand or not.
Born in 1986, Negar is an Iranian filmmaker, animator, and conceptual artist. She began her artistic journey studying graphic arts at Azad University in Tehran, before pursuing a Master’s degree in the Erasmus Mundus program « Reanima ».
In 2021, she left Iran for Belgium, where resuming her studies profoundly transformed her artistic path. Her work explores societal issues and cultural complexities, deeply marked by her separation from her country.
As a freelancer, she now works on animated films, video games, storyboards, music videos, and more, embracing both traditional and digital forms. Today, she is creating her first virtual reality animation, using the unique Quill software.
Written and directed by:
Négar Motevalymeidanshah
Producer
Gwenaëlle Clauwaert
Lead Developer (Quill)
Amaury Campion
Lead Developer (Unity)
Michaël Bolufer – Studio Manette
Music
Kian Portorab, Laurent Vang
Sound Design
Laurent Vang
Sound creation and mix studio
Blanktone Studios
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