Dir: Soraya Akhlaghi and Mehrdad Oskouei | Drama 2026
A Fox Under a Pink Moon: An inspiring journey of survival and imagination
A fox for a travelling companion, a pink moon for a guiding light and a bunch of demons to keep at bay: the imaginative universe of Soraya Akhlaghi is as vivid as it is poignant. For this remarkable young Afghan artist, drawing, sculpting and filming are not simply creative pursuits but acts of defiance, a means of holding on to her identity while the world conspires to take it away.
Co-directed by Soraya and Iranian filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei, A Fox Under a Pink Moon chronicles five extraordinary years in the life of a young woman determined to escape Iran and reunite with her mother in Austria. Armed with a smartphone and an indomitable sense of purpose, Soraya documents her attempts to reach Europe, a dangerous undertaking involving people smugglers, precarious border crossings and repeated disappointments. Back in Tehran, she is also enduring an abusive marriage, working alongside her husband cleaning the luxurious apartments of the Iranian middle classes while dreaming of a radically different existence.
What makes the film compelling is the remarkable degree to which Soraya controls her own narrative. Rather than being observed from a safe documentary distance, she brings us directly into her experience, capturing the uncertainty, fear and occasional exhilaration of life on the move. Her footage has an immediacy that conventional documentary techniques could scarcely manufacture. We are not simply watching her journey; we are experiencing it through her eyes.
Yet this is no straightforward chronicle of hardship. Soraya’s artistic imagination provides the film with its distinctive visual identity, blending intimate smartphone footage with drawings, sculptures and animation. Her fox becomes a symbolic travelling companion, while the pink moon offers a poetic presence amid the instability of her everyday existence. A melancholy clown and various fantastical creatures populate her inner world, giving visual expression to the fears and anxieties she cannot always articulate.
The juxtaposition of this imaginative universe with the often brutal reality of her circumstances is particularly effective. The contrast between the opulent homes she cleans and the uncertain future she is trying to construct is quietly devastating. But Soraya refuses to be defined by victimhood. Her creativity becomes a weapon against despair, allowing her to transform personal trauma into something expressive, mischievous and unexpectedly beautiful.
Oskouei’s contribution is equally significant. The collaboration allows Soraya to remain the central creative force, giving her the freedom to shape the material rather than simply become its subject. The result is an unusually intimate portrait in which authorship itself becomes part of the story: a young woman reclaiming control through the very act of recording her life.
Visually inventive, emotionally absorbing and frequently suspenseful, A Fox Under a Pink Moon moves effortlessly between the precarious business of survival and the liberating possibilities of artistic expression. Its moments of fantasy never soften the harshness of Soraya’s reality; instead, they reveal the extraordinary resilience required to keep imagining a future when the present offers so little security.
This is ultimately as much a celebration of artistic self-determination as it is a story of migration. Soraya’s journey may be shaped by borders, bureaucracy and the cruelty of others, but her imagination remains gloriously borderless.
IN UK CINEMAS FROM 13 November 2026