Nayereh Farahani

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

A mother's courage, hardship, and love, in times of war. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, Gilane escorts her pregnant daughter, Maygol, from the relative calm of their village, Espili, into war-torn Tehran to search for Maygol's husband, Rahman. The journey is arduous and what they find when they reach the capital is dismaying and frightening. Fifteen years later, as another war begins in Iraq, Gillane is at home caring for her son Ismael, who suffers from epilepsy, a byproduct of war. As she cares for him, she hopes for a visit from the doctor and from another daughter, Atefah. "Better be a dog than a mother," she says.

An elderly owner of a tomato farm and sauce factory, after his wife's death, falls in love with one of the workers of the factory endangering his relationship with his daughters and in-laws. While everybody in the big family persuades the old man to abandon the relationship with the poor girl, the old man makes his final choice of love.

A sharp-edged look at people who live outside the constraints of Islamic law.

Rahman (Parviz Parastuyi) falls in love with a Christan woman from Lebanon. She was a Christan but she becomes Muslim before her second meeting with Rahman. So he decides to marry her.

A hundred and fourteen famous Iranian theater and cinema actresses and a French star: mute spectators at a theatrical representation of Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian poem from the twelfth century, put on stage by Kiarostami. The development of the text -- long a favorite in Persia and the Middle East -- remains invisible to the viewer of the film, the whole story is told by the faces of the women watching the show.

Niloofar is a twelve-year-old girl whose dream is to read and write, but she lives in a village where education is only for boys. Her mother, a well-known midwife, insists that Niloofar become her apprentice. While assisting her mother during a delivery, Niloofar meets a feminist woman who undertakes to teach her in secret. Unfortunately, in exchange of a palm tree field, Niloofar's father promises her in marriage to an older man once she becomes a woman. Horrified by this notion, Niloofar does everything in her power to postpone her first periods. Eventually, the inevitable occurs. HOwever, Niloofar, who is determined to keep her freedom as long as possible, arranges to conceal the fact from her family for another two years until the truth can no longer be hidden. Then, rather than live in a marriage without love, Niloofar runs away with her friend. Shocked, her family considers itself dishonored and sends her step-brother to track her down

Forough Kia is a film-maker who got divorced from her husband many years ago and now is living with her son Maani. She decides to make a documentary about perfect mothers. In order to do so she meets many mothers to chose the perfect mother among them. She finally decides to quit making this film because of tiredness but doctor Rahbar wants her to continue. Maani is teasing her every day preventing her from marrying doctor Rahbar but she finally decides that she wants to marry him.