Being Born

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

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

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.

A Khorasani saffron grower struggles to fertilize the saffron plant with dehydration and the risk of losing the dull flowers of the saffron in order to obtain the flower stigma or saffron root.

This documentary is about the rangers who serve in the Lake Urmia area. They give water to local animals such as deer and help birds that fall into the water and cover their body with salt crystals. One of the rangers stays on an island in the middle of the lake and is unable to move his boat due to the high salt water. A boat comes to his aid at night. The birds of this lake are extinct due to the high salt content of the water.

for two days a school in tehran wil be run by the students

The life of Saideh Ghods changed completely when her two-year-old daughter Kiana was diagnosed with cancer. As she confronted her daughter’s suffering, she became aware of the suffering of so many impoverished families in hospital corridors around the country who were dealing with children afflicted by cancer. When, due to the doctors’ timely diagnosis, Kiana was on the path to a full recovery, Saideh Ghods resolved to prevent the unnecessary deaths of children with cancer caused by lack of access to therapeutic facilities or insufficient financial resources.

In 1983, amidst the hardships of post-revolutionary and war-torn Iran, a group of engineering classmates established a steel foundry near the city of Sari, in the North of Iran. Their main goal was to gain income for themselves and at the same time eliminate the nation’s dependence on foreign steel. They dubbed themselves 'the Tabarestaners' after the name of the province where they first began their successful collaborations. Over the years they have worked together to overcome many obstacles which were mostly due to economic problems at the national level. They founded the Tabarestan Steel Foundry and have since established other factories around Iran. The Tabarestaners have maintained their circle of friends and relatives for years. Now that they have reached retirement age they are thinking about the future of their industries.