Filmmaker behind Firewall, a live-action/CGI adaptation of the Shahnameh's Zahhak story set in Texas, explains the film is finished and heading to festivals. Starring Ewan Esfandi and Nazanin Noor, it was made on a shoestring budget to bring Persian mythology to global audiences.
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This is one of my most asked questions: When will Firewall be released? Firewall is my short film. It tells the story of Zahhak the Serpent King. It's a Persian mythology film set in Texas. It's one of the first live-action, if not the first live-action CGI making of a Persian mythological king, a story from the Shahnameh, which we have spent the past year, me and a team of dedicated people who have just poured everything, like a ton of time, energy, effort all on a tiny shoestring budget, we have made this film, um, and all have come together to tell the story of Zahhak the Serpent King, to uplift the voices of the Iranian people, and to share Persian mythology with the world for the first time. We have so many stories and we have so many things we want to share that this is hopefully the tip of the iceberg. But I keep getting asked when will it be released, and the thing is, I don't even know. We are finished with the film. It took us a year. I spent the past year full time working on this film. It stars Ewan Esfandi. He plays Ezra Bridger in Star Wars, for all you Star Wars fans, the Ahsoka series on Disney Plus. You'll recognize him from that. It also stars Nazanin Noor, who you may recognize from Persia's Got Talent. She was also a character in Big Mouth, which is, I find to be really cool. And our little star, Isla. Isla we found after a nationwide casting call. We got hundreds of submissions from girls all over the states, even all over the world. People submitted in hopes of being Ani in the film, and Isla, she was perfect She was the perfect little girl. She had never acted before, but this is hopefully the start of an incredible acting career because I think that she was perfect. She was so coachable, so directable. She memorized all the lines that I wrote, and it was just such a pleasure to work with her. So I'm really excited to see where she goes. So when will we release this film? The thing is, right now it's finished. I'm just waiting to hear back from film festivals. So we'll have a premiere at a film festival, hopefully soon. And then it'll go on something called a festival run. So hoping that this film will play at a festival near you, which means it will screen at these festivals all around the world and you can buy tickets and you can see it at the film festival, hopefully over the next year or two. After that, we will see where it will live online. So hoping, crossing our fingers that a platform, you know, like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, somebody notices it. And wants to uplift the voices of the Iranian people as well, likes the idea and the concept and the novelty of bringing Persian mythology to the big screen for the first time. Hopefully all of that comes together and we can put it on a big streaming platform. It will live online somewhere in some capacity, and you can all watch it.
