The official poster for Bahman Ghobadi’s Rhino Season has finally surfaced as TIFF‘s official page  announces the festival lineup: premiere for Rhino Season is on September 12, followed by two other screenings on Sept. 13 and 15. As many of you may remember, The Whistleblower debutted at TIFF too last year, but Monica didn’t show up – hopefully she will this time since she is headlining the film.

Also, Rhino Season will be in competition at  the San Sebastian Festival at the end of September too, but there is no official lineup yet.

In the meantime, here is the official plot from TIFF’s webpage:

Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi has been hailed as the cinematic keeper of his people’s traditions since his Caméra d’Or–winning debut A Time for Drunken Horses, the first ever feature film made in Kurdish, a language that has been banned in Iranian schools since the 1940s. A self-proclaimed documentary filmmaker who happens to infuse his films with generous amounts of fiction, Ghobadi has now firmly embraced his fictional leanings with his new film Rhino Season. Once again, Ghobadi derives his story from real-life events, but this time he explores a more visual side of his talent, creating a unique atmosphere that melds past and present as if in a waking dream.

A haunting love story that spans three decades, Rhino Season is based on the tragic story of a Kurdish poet and family friend of Ghobadi’s who was unjustly incarcerated during Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The victim of a personal vendetta, Sahel (Iranian superstar Behrouz Vossoughi) is thrown into prison along with his devoted wife Mina (Italian star Monica Bellucci). Inexplicably released after serving a ten-year sentence, Mina is informed by the authorities that Sahel is dead. Heartbroken, she and her two children leave Iran for Istanbul — unknowingly leaving behind her very-much-alive husband, who is forced to stay in prison for another twenty years. Finally released, Sahel sets out to find his wife and children, the memory of whom was the only thing that had sustained him throughout his agonizing ordeal. But after clinging to an intangible vision for so many years, what is the reality that awaits him now?

Sumptuously shot, wrapped in gilded shades of brown and velvety midnight blue, Rhino Season makes several exquisite departures from reality as Sahel’s recitations of his forbidden verse elicit a string of gorgeous images, the power of his art superseding his grim, desperate plight. His first feature to be shot outside Iran, Rhino Season shows Ghobadi exercising his imaginative powers to their fullest extent, yielding a rapturous cinematic experience that will linger in your memory for a long time to come.