Scorsese Joins Eva Green Film Trees Are Watching for Toronto Premiere
Martin Scorsese has joined Bahman Ghobadi's Trees Are Watching as an executive producer, a senior backing role, just before its world premiere, Deadline reported on 17 September.
Scorsese shares the executive producer credit with Lucas Akoskin and Bahoz Nasradin on the film. The timing is tight. The announcement came as Toronto prepared for the first screening on Friday.
The film is written and directed by Ghobadi and stars Eva Green as Darya. Darya is a novelist who returns with her deaf daughter to her hometown of Mardin, a city in south-eastern Turkey near the Syrian border.
Toronto lists the film in its Centrepiece section and describes it as blending psychological horror and ecological allegory, according to TIFF. The festival's 2026 edition runs from 10 to 20 September, according to TIFF. Ghobadi and actor Murat Yıldırım are expected to attend the premiere.
The pairing has history. Scorsese presented Ghobadi's Rhino Season, starring Behrouz Vossoughi and Monica Bellucci, at its world premiere at Toronto in 2012. Ghobadi later spent time on the sets of The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman, and appeared in one scene of The Irishman.
Behind the camera, the producers are Seyfi Sahin, Ghobadi, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Golriz Ehtiati. The film is presented by Open the Door and is an MIJ Film production.
What makes this stand out is the chain of connection. A film-maker known for stories rooted in the Kurdish and Iranian experience brings a horror story led by Green to Toronto. Scorsese arrives as a high-profile supporter with a long link to Ghobadi's work.
