The ingeniously plotted The Circle unfolds as an afternoon in Tehran turns into darkest night. Episodic in nature, the film jumps from one character to another as a string of women – expectant mothers, newly released prisoners, prostitutes – cross paths and find themselves for one reason or another on the wrong side of the strictures of Iran’s theocracy. A howl of outrage at one nation’s misogyny, the film is also a tour-de-force of filmmaking as Panahi employs every method – from elaborate camera movements to shooting in extremely low light – to tell his story.