How Long Is “Secret Ballot”?

This comedy follows a determined female election official (Nassim Abdi) and the grumpy soldier (Cyrus Abidi) assigned to escort her as she tries to collect votes on a remote Iranian island. The soldier, one of two assigned to stand guard on the island, is aghast at the thought of a woman giving him orders, and complains constantly. She is just as stubborn in her determination to wring every vote out of an island inhabited almost entirely by illiterate shepherds and smugglers who would rather that the government not even know that they exist at all. Director Babak Payami's film is an extended battle of the sexes that takes a few digs at the Iranian political process along the way.