Archives of Resistance: Mani Haghighi’s ‘I Deserve a Lover’ Confronts the Memory of a Fractured Iran

The New York Film Festival (NYFF) has long served as a bastion for cinema that challenges the boundaries of traditional documentary storytelling. This year, as the festival gears up for its run from September 25 to October 12, 2026, it is set to host one of the most enigmatic and ambitious premieres in its recent history. Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi, known for his refusal to adhere to genre conventions, will unveil his latest work: I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies.

The documentary, which is set to premiere on September 30, is a meditative, visually dense, and politically charged exploration of the nature of memory. Centered on the life and work of Nasser Bakhshi—a painter, curator, and conceptual artist based in the northwestern city of Tabriz—the film serves as both a portrait of a singular individual and a sweeping look at the preservation of history in a nation constantly under threat of erasure.

A Chronology of Creation Amidst Chaos

To understand the weight of I Deserve a Lover, one must look at the timeline of its production. Haghighi’s director’s statement provides a harrowing context for the film’s inception. The project was filmed in September 2025, a period defined by profound national trauma.

• June 2025: The conclusion of the "Twelve-Day War," an intense military conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.
• September 2025: Production begins on the film. Haghighi describes this as a period of "mental paralysis," where the filmmaker felt stripped of agency and trapped within the geopolitical volatility of the region.
• Winter 2025–2026: A period of civil unrest followed by a brutal crackdown on Iranian protesters by government forces.
• September 30, 2026: The world premiere of the documentary at the New York Film Festival.

Haghighi describes the process of making the film as an act of defiance against "the vast, moronic darkness" of the era. By gathering his friends and focusing on the tangible objects within Bakhshi’s home, the director sought to reclaim a sense of meaning when the "coordinates of [his] life were no longer [his] to determine."

The Hoarder as Historian: Inside the Archive

At the heart of the documentary is the sprawling, unconventional home of Nasser Bakhshi and his partner, Roghayeh Najdi. To the casual observer, the collection of objects housed within their residence might look like the work of a compulsive hoarder. However, as the film illustrates, this is a calculated, artistic, and deeply political act of preservation.

Bakhshi’s archive spans centuries, encompassing non-official historical documents and found objects that stretch from the pre-Islamic era to the present day. In a country where the state-sanctioned narrative often seeks to sanitize or suppress specific aspects of the past, Bakhshi’s work serves as a necessary counter-record.

The documentary does not merely treat these items as museum pieces. Instead, it examines the "collecting process—excavating, labeling, storing, archiving—as both an artistic and political act." Through this lens, the home becomes a sanctuary for the individual stories that have been systematically ignored or erased by those in power.

Complementary Visions: Roghayeh Najdi

While the archive is primarily the domain of Bakhshi, the film finds a vital emotional and thematic anchor in the work of his partner, Roghayeh Najdi. A surrealist painter, Najdi provides a necessary counterpoint to the rigid, object-focused work of Bakhshi.

Her paintings are framed by Haghighi as a commentary on the status of women in modern Iranian society. Where Bakhshi is obsessed with the physical remnants of the past, Najdi is concerned with the psychological reality of the present. Their partnership, described in the film as "two obscurities locked in a private language," provides the emotional backbone of the documentary. It suggests that even in a landscape of political violence and historical upheaval, intimate human connections can remain a form of resistance.

Stylistic Language: Bergman, Parajanov, and Beyond

Haghighi’s visual language in this documentary is intentionally distinct. Programming synopses from the NYFF note that the film feels in active dialogue with the titans of world cinema, citing influences ranging from Ingmar Bergman to Sergei Parajanov.

The film utilizes a nonlinear, almost hypnotic structure to navigate the "deranged hoarding" of the house. By allowing the camera to linger on the seemingly random material kept by the couple, Haghighi hopes to conjure an "oblique portrait" of his subjects. The director admits that the process of filming itself became a part of the archive: "I wasn’t simply making a film about it: I was entering it and feeding it. But this time, ceding control felt like liberation."

This surrender of control is arguably the film’s greatest strength. By moving away from the traditional, omniscient narrator typical of historical documentaries, Haghighi allows the audience to experience the archive not as a finished history book, but as a living, breathing, and volatile entity.

Implications for Iranian Cinema and Global Politics

The inclusion of I Deserve a Lover at the New York Film Festival—alongside the short film South of Tehran by Kleber Mendonça Filho, which focuses on director Jafar Panahi’s experiences at the festival—highlights the continued relevance and urgency of Iranian cinema on the world stage.

The implications of Haghighi’s film are twofold. First, it brings to light the precarious state of collective memory in Iran. By focusing on the "pre-Islamic" to the "today," the film challenges the monolithic identity often projected by the current regime. It posits that the true history of a nation is found not in its official monuments, but in the private, often discarded objects of its people.

Second, the film highlights the role of the filmmaker as a witness to trauma. In an age of digital saturation, where images of war and conflict are consumed and discarded with terrifying speed, Haghighi argues for the importance of the "archive"—a space where images and words can regain their meaning.

Programming and Industry Outlook

The screening at NYFF will be preceded by Kleber Mendonça Filho’s South of Tehran, a poignant pairing that reinforces the theme of the artist as a target of state scrutiny.

As of late 2026, I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies is actively seeking U.S. distribution. With Films Boutique handling international sales, the film is expected to make a significant impact on the festival circuit, potentially serving as a centerpiece for discussions regarding the intersection of art, memory, and political repression.

For audiences, the film promises an experience that is as stimulating as it is unorthodox. In an era where many documentaries seek to simplify the world for the viewer, Haghighi has chosen the more difficult path: he invites the audience to walk into a house of chaos, to sift through the fragments of a broken history, and to find, within that "vast, moronic darkness," a reason to keep looking.

As the industry looks toward the September 30 premiere, the buzz surrounding the film suggests that it will be a cornerstone of the 2026 New York Film Festival. Whether the documentary finds a broad distribution deal or remains a cult object for the initiated, it has already achieved its primary goal: it has ensured that the stories, objects, and memories of Nasser Bakhshi and Roghayeh Najdi will not be easily erased.