Short Film

Return

Name: Return
Director: Bahman Radan
Genre: Drama
Released: 2024
Duration: 10 min 10 s

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Country: Türkiye
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 10:10
Language: Silent
AD1 Role: Production company

Official poster of the short film Return, directed by Bahman Radan and written by Sara Moradi.

FILM PROFILE

LOGLINE

After being brutally murdered, the spirit of a traumatized mother embarks on a desperate quest to protect the child she left behind, only to discover that her neighbors, her enemies, and even her killer are past reincarnations of her own soul.

Format: Short Film
Production Year: 2024
Runtime: 10:10
Country of Production: Türkiye
Filming Locations: Türkiye
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Silent
Subtitles: EN
Image: Color
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 / 1.78:1
Exhibition Formats: Digital
AD1 FILM Role: Production company
Production Companies: AD1 FILM

SHORT SYNOPSIS

After her brutal murder, a mother's restless spirit remains trapped between worlds, searching for the child she left behind. As reality dissolves, she discovers that victim, killer and stranger are all different incarnations of the same soul.

SYNOPSIS

"Return" follows the spiritual aftermath of a horrific crime. A young woman is tortured and killed, leaving behind a young child. Trapped in the mortal world by her agonizing maternal anxiety, her spirit wanders through her old neighborhood, desperate to ensure her child's safety.

However, as she observes the people interconnected with her life, the boundaries of identity begin to dissolve. She recognizes her own essence within her neighbors, strangers, and eventually, the very husband who abused and murdered her. In her final moments, the woman remembers her countless past lives and ancient wars, realizing that her earthly fears for her child were illusions of a temporary world. Understanding that all human beings are but one single soul playing different roles across time, she breaks free from the illusion of separation and transitions into her next incarnation.

THEMES

Maternal attachment; Trauma; Reincarnation; Spiritual awakening; Unity and separation

KEYWORDS

ReturnBahman Radanshort filmsilent cinemasurrealismmetaphysical dramareincarnationTürkiyeAD1 FILM

DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY

Bahman Radan

Bahman Radan is an Iranian director, producer, writer and entrepreneur, born on February 2, 1988, in Bijar, Iran. He holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Qazvin University and studied filmmaking and film directing at Akdeniz University in Türkiye.

Radan has produced and directed silent, conceptual and philosophical short films, including Smile, Childhood Dream, Smoking Kills But Not You, Circle, That Also Breathes, Victim and Return. His films explore silence, trauma, spirituality, reincarnation, human suffering and metaphysical transformation.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

As a filmmaker, my vision for "Return" was to explore the ultimate paradox of human existence: how a deeply personal, localized trauma can lead to a universal, cosmic awakening. The dramatic core of this film lies in the friction between maternal attachment and spiritual liberation. We begin with a ghost driven by the ultimate earthly bond—a mother’s agonizing anxiety for her child after being brutally murdered. However, her journey is not one of revenge, but of shattering the illusion of separation.

To mirror this internal shift from the chaotic mind to absolute stillness, I deliberately chose a silent, surrealist cinematic form. By stripping away dialogue, I wanted to bypass intellectual interpretation and speak directly to the audience’s subconscious. Words often divide us, whereas silence unifies. The surrealism allowed me to dissolve the boundaries of time and space, blurring the line between the individual and the collective.

The visual grammar of the film relies on a heavy atmosphere where environments and faces shift, eventually revealing the core truth: every neighbor, every bystander, and even her abuser are not external entities, but different manifestations of her own soul. In her final moments, as she remembers her past lives and ancient wars, she undergoes a dramatic release. Her anxiety for her child vanishes not out of neglect, but through the realization that we are one single soul reincarnated in different bodies. "Return" is a formal experiment in using cinema as a medium for transcendence—moving from the ultimate horror of violence to the ultimate peace of cosmic oneness.

VISUAL APPROACH

Silent, surrealist visual storytelling; shifting identities and environments reveal different manifestations of the same soul.

CAST & CREW

Director: Bahman Radan
Writer: Sara Moradi
Producer: Bahman Radan
Production Company: AD1 FILM
Cinematographer: Bahman Radan
Camera: Emre Küpeli, Hamun Mirzaee, Bahman Radan
Editor: Zahra Radanfar
Lead Cast: Çigil Ünsal, Bülent Akkaş, Ramazan Öğüt
Cast: Aytaç yesilmen , Meryem fidan , Mahmut fidan , Menderes armağan , Şehri fidan , Mersana Radan
Composer / Sound Designer: Sina Masserrat
Colour / Light Correction: Zahra Radanfar
Script Supervisor: Zahra Radanfar
Poster Designer: MohammadReza Jafari
Visual Effects: MohammadReza Baik , Mojtaba Zanganeh