The Tenants (Ejareh-Nesheenha) (1986)

Akbar Abdi, Ali Alinaghikani, Mohamed Alinaghkani, Ali Reza Asadian, Golamreza Banafshehkkhah ... see more  , Ezatollah Entezami , Farimah Farjami , Nasrin Ghasemzadeh , Reza Hademi , Ferdos Kaviani , Hamideh Khier-Abadi , Reza Rayegari , Mannijeh Salimi , Hossein Sarshar , Shapour Shahidi , Hassan Tohmoores

Simultaneously slapstick and metaphorical, this secular Iranian satire is set in a cheaply built modern apartment block located in a suburb of Tehran and follows the rebellion of a wildly disparate gr... read more oup of tenants who band together to prevent their building manager from selling their homes to German developers. The whole mess begins when the owner of the building dies in a train wreck with no children or family of his own, the building falls under the aegis of Iran's vague "heir-uncertain" law. Greedy developers convince the manager to illegally oust the tenants so he and they can claim the building. Unfortunately, the residents refuse to move. Things become more chaotic after a rival group of developers informs the tenants of the building manager's plans. He then informs them that according to the law, if they put up the money to make the building's badly needed repairs, they can claim the building themselves. The ensuing battles, largely comprised of endless, not always well-subtitled, bickering and many funny pratfalls. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi