Mani Haghighi's long-titled documentary premieres at New York Film Festival
A documentary with a title you have to hear twice is meeting its first audience in New York.
I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies is having its world premiere at the 64th New York Film Festival. A world premiere means this is the first public screening anywhere. The festival lists the film in its Main Slate, the central programme of new work, according to FilmLinc.
The film is directed by Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi. It follows two Tabriz-based artists, Nasser Bakshi and Roghayeh Najdi, according to The Art Newspaper.
Bakshi is a painter, conceptual artist, collector and curator. He runs the Nasser Bakhshi Museum Archive in Tabriz, his own store of artworks and collected material. Najdi works alongside him in the same city. The camera stays with them at work and at home.
The selection was first confirmed when the festival announced its Main Slate in early August. Dennis Lim serves as Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival. The Main Slate is the festival's core lineup, a relatively small group of features chosen to anchor each edition.
Business started before the premiere. Films Boutique, a sales company that licenses films to distributors and platforms around the world, acquired the film ahead of its New York debut, Variety reported on 11 August 2026. For a general audience, that means deals for cinema, streaming and television outside the film's home territory can now go ahead.
Viewers at home got an early peek. IndieWire published an exclusive first-look clip on 21 September 2026, ahead of the world premiere. A first-look clip is a short extract released to introduce the tone and characters.
What makes this stand out is access. Artist documentaries often focus on large cities with big galleries and fairs. This one centres on Tabriz and on a working archive built by one of its own artists.
The title is a mouthful. The setup is simple. Two artists, one city, and a filmmaker watching closely.
