Angst isst Seele auf

In 1979, amidst censorship and religious extremism, a revolutionary literature professor in Tehran gathers seven of her most dedicated female students to immerse themselves in banned literary classics.

Babak, an Iranian student in Greece, doesn't show up to welcome his visiting parents at the Athens airport. Pari and her older husband, both devout Muslims abroad for the first time, are ill-prepared to search for their son in an intimidating and alien environment. All their attempts to find a clue that might lead them to him prove to be in vain and they soon reach a dead end. But Pari can't give up looking for him, even when returning to Iran seems like her only choice. Following the steps of her rebellious son in the darkest corners of the city, she will exhaust her inner strength to achieve more than a mother's search for her missing son.

The film relates the story of a surgeon (Doctor Pārsā) who returns to Iran after living in Germany for 33 years. Arriving in Tehran, Doctor Pārsā performs a heart operation on the nephew of the family friend Mr Ghanāti. Mr Ghanāti urges him to travel with him to his home town, Bam. On the trip, they drive past the rubble and destruction and Pārsā remembers back to his childhood.[citation needed]