When God Sleeps

Documentary on Shahin Najafi, the musician whose songs about sexism and human rights abuses in Iran has been labelled blasphemous in his homeland where he faces a prison sentence and a hundred lashes.

In his native Iran, musician Shahin Najafi, the “Salman Rushdie of Rap”, faces prison and a hundred lashes for his “blasphemous music”. Clerics have issued a fatwa against him, calling for his death because of a song about the oppression of women, sexism and human rights abuses in his homeland. In exile in the German city of Cologne, Najafi falls in love with Leili Bazargan, the granddaughter of the first Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. With Najafi still a target of the Iranian regime, the couple become a modern-day Romeo & Juliet, their love story played out against the backdrop of Europe’s refugee crisis and the rise to power of Donald Trump.

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