The Blue-Veiled

Bani-Etemad's documentary short was made during the months before last year's controversial elections in Iran. Filming a diverse coalition of women's rights activists discussing their opinions on pressing contemporary issues, Bani-Etemad asked three of the four presidential candidates to view the footage for comment, with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad declining to participate.

Morteza Olfat is an ordinary employee who has lots of problems in his life. One day, he happens to find fifty thousand dollars. He says nothing to anyone and tries to exchange the cash.

Aboard the top deck of a cruise ship, Baran, a young wealthy girl, notices a native boy who is dancing joyfully to beating drums. Baran arrives at a plush hotel on the mainland, however she seems somewhat disconsolate. Later she finds the native boy again and they begin to bond, playfully exploring the beach resort together. Later, the two go aboard a row-boat and the native dives down into the water to collect a pearl from the seabed for her. However, the ending leaves the audience to wonder if he was a figment of Baran's longing imagination all along. Well-shot and with a strong performance from Baran Kosari, this film perfectly captures the bittersweet pangs of young love.

Tuba works daily at a grueling textile factory in Iran, returning home every night to deal with the rest of her problematic family, which includes: a pregnant daughter whose husband beats her regularly; a teenage son, who's been getting into trouble due to his burgeoning career in radical politics; and an older son who goes to great lengths--such as attempting to sell the family's meager house--in order to get an engineering job in Japan as a means of getting out of Iran.

Documentary by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, an Iranian female director. This film portrays two aspects of the Iranian presidential election of 2001.

The uneasy relationship between a mother and daughter is made all the more turbulent by drug abuse in this downbeat drama from Iranian filmmakers Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab

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.

Mohammad Javad Halimi is a simple government's employer who manages after years to buy a house for himself outside the city's limits. But in the second night in his new house a thief is coming to his house. He manages to catch the thief but delivering him to the authorities is another story.

Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Rakshan Banietemad ends her eight-year hiatus from feature filmmaking with this ingenious, mosaic-like narrative, which knits together the stories of seven characters to create a microcosm of Iranian working-class society.

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.

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

After spending all his money buying a piece of land that was already sold to someone else, Nasrallah Madadi finds himself in trouble. To solve his money problems, he then decides to be the offender of fraud rather than its victim. Getting himself involved with a pair of criminals, he begins a crooked business selling a same yellow taxi to different buyers, only to steal it back from them and sell it again. In a fascinating portrayal of human nature, Canary Yellow follows Nasrallah through the ups and downs of his double-sided experience of crime. But will it all end with the better life for his family he hopes for?

A documentary dealing with the life of Ahmadreza Ahmadi, an Iranian Poet.

Persian Carpet is an omnibus film produced by Iran's National Carpet Center and Farabi Cinema Foundation where 15 renowned Iranian directors contributed films on the subject of Persian carpet. Carpets are the reflection of the cultural and historical identity of Iran.

An anthology directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Testing Democracy) and Dariush Mehrjui (Dear Cousin is Lost)

A documentary about life and career of an eighty-year-old Iranian actress, Iran Daftari.