Secret Ballot (2001) DVD

Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Babak Payami looks at the problems of bringing democracy to Iran. The film begins with a ballot box being dropped from an airplane onto a desert island off the coast of Iran, terrifying a soldier stationed there who thinks it's a bomb. Another soldier (Cyris Abidi) has orders to accompany the arriving agent who will collect the votes, and he's shocked to realize his charge is an educated, freethinking young woman (Nassim Abidi) from the city. During their long, argumentative day together, the pair run up against all sorts of reactions to this strange new electoral procedure, from fear, to jubilation, to utter indifference...