99 minutes – Drama, LGBTQ2+
Language – Persian, English subtitles
Festival release date: July 7, 2022 – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Television release date: April 21, 2023 – Crave
Production Companies: Sweet Delight Pictures, First Generation Films, CFC Features
Canadian distributor:

Summer With Hope, a Canada-Iran coproduction, is the second film in a planned trilogy from Montreal-based writer-director Sadaf Foroughi. It tells the story of a young swimmer, Omid (Mahdi Ghorbani), who has been barred from a swimming competition for bureaucratic reasons, but his participation is crucial to his family. His estranged father has given his consent to a divorce from his mother (Leili Rashidi), but it is conditional on Omid’s performance in the competition. He begins to train in open-water swimming under the coaching of Mani (Benyamin Peyrovani), with their increasingly close friendship leading to community rumours and allegations they are engaging in a gay sexual relationship with each other.

Summer With Hope won the Crystal Globe Grand Prix for Best Feature Film at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, before it screened at the Hamptons International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Haifa International Film Festival and Outfest Fusion Film Festival, among others. It was nominated for three 2023 Canadian Screen Awards including Original Screenplay for Foroughi, Performance in a Supporting Role for Leili Rashidi, and for Best Motion Picture. It is the 26th feature produced by CFC Features, with the participation of Crave, a division of Bell Media Inc.