To avoid her oppressive father and brothers, Hanna claims she has been kidnapped and requires a ransom. With the money, she runs away with her lover Murry. They hitch a ride to Tehran with street musician Azie, but things don’t go to plan. Having had trouble finding a bed for a night, they get help from Azie again. Murry goes out to find Hanna’s necklace, which she dropped in the car, but he gets arrested and their plans get more tangled. Paviz Shahbazi’s Malaria follows a woman’s journey, in which she chooses to run away with her lover under thesub shadow of the cultural repression of women. This film shows the subjugated state of women hasn’t changed despite transformations in political and economic spheres, such as Iran’s nuclear negotiations and the lifting of economic sanctions. The vivacious images of young people that Hanna films on her cell phone are met with frustration. This film demonstrates how the chaos caused by incessant confrontation between change and stability impacts on woman’s life. Malaria was presented in the Orizzonti section of the 73rd Venice Film Festival. (KIM Byeong-cheol)