A caged bird discovers that true freedom emerges not through struggle, but through surrender to rhythm and movement.
In Iranian culture, samaa is the spiritual practice of achieving awakening through rhythm and movement. In an imagined captivity, a caged bird flutters and thrashes in a desperate struggle to escape. Rendered in striking hand-painted animation and driven by a visceral drum score, the film traces the bird’s gradual surrender to the transcendent power of music. Filmmaker Ehsan Gharib invites us to consider whether freedom is a physical condition or a state of mind.
Samaa, Ehsan Gharib, provided by the National Film Board of Canada