MAYA (2020)

The true life story of an Iranian animal trainer and his beloved Bengal Tiger.

Every day, thousands of visitors flock to the zoo in the Iranian city of Mashhad to see the tigress Maya and her trainer Mohsen with their own eyes. Having raised the Bengal tiger, he is the only one that Maya listens to. From feeding and stroking to playful fighting, the predator tolerates her foster father’s presence in the enclosure. When Maya is allowed to leave the zoo for a short period to star in a film, she’s sent to an empty tiger farm on the Caspian Sea. Between shooting dates, Mohsen allows her to run around in the almost deserted landscape. With the freedom to roam around without bars or leashes for the first time in her life, the animal’s suppressed instincts rise to the surface. But their sobering return, and the revelation of frightening incidents at the zoo, casts a new light on their relationship. With an extraordinary approach to the protagonist and the predator, the filmmakers highlight the complex and questionable fascination with the domestication of wild animals.