Nabili returned to Iran in 1975 to shoot a film she had written about local folklore, Afsanehha-ye Kohan, commissioned by Iranian national television. This film primarily served as a pretext for shooting The Sealed Soil (Khak-e Sar Behmohr), which she did without authorization and with a non-professional crew. The film traces the "passive revolt" of a young girl who refuses to marry,[1] a transformation that can be seen as a metaphor for Iran's transition from tradition to modernity.[4] She smuggled the original negative out of Iran and edited it at her university in New York.[2] The film was shot without sound. Nabili later added dubbing and sound effects.[5]The Sealed Soil met with international critical acclaim, notably winning an award at the London Film Festival in 1977.[6] The film is the second feature film made by a female director in Iran.[1] The film was never shown in Iran and was finally officially released in the United States in 2025.[7]
In 1984, Nabili shot her first film in the United States, Nightsongs, about the struggles of a Chinese family to integrate into New York and its Chinatown. The film was shot with a budget of $400,000, its production sparked controversy, with the Asian-American community and filmmakers criticizing it for depicting a community to which it did not belong.[2] Nabili, who claimed to have spent more than two years in Chinatown to connect with the community, even working for four months in a sweatshop, partially modified her film following criticism, ultimately achieving widespread critical acclaim upon its release in 1983.[2] In April 1985, it was aired on the series American Playhouse on PBS. In a review in The New York Times, John J. O'Connor described the film as a "haunting biography of outsiders trying to survive in a new environment."[8]
