Growing up with a secular father and a devout Muslim mother co-existing under one roof in Tehran, the daughter of the family peers through the hazy gauze of the past, the Islamic revolution in Iran and her split family, trying to reflect on her own life as well as those of many turned upside down by the revolution.

On the brink of the revolution, her mother found a new raison d’etre and a new identity; she became a religious activist while her father sat quietly in his favourite chair at home and listened to Bach. Playing cards, red wine and photographs of women not wearing the hijab were removed from the household and her mother censored the past – while her father dreamt of a different future.

Directed by one of the most promising voices of Iranian cinema and the winner of the Best Film award at IDFA, this internationally acclaimed documentary is an intimate and delicately woven family history spanning pre and post revolutionary Iran, reflecting on a country that the revolution has shattered into a thousand pieces.

Born in Tehran, Firouzeh Khosrovani settled in Italy to pursue her artistic studies at Milan’s Brera Academy. After graduating in 2002 she returned to Iran and acquired her Master’s degree in Journalism. Her debut film, Life Train, is a documentary on the ‘play’ therapy provided for the traumatized children of the earthquake in Bam. In 2007, she directed Rough Cut, a film about mutilated plastic mannequins in the shop windows of Tehran, which won thirteen international film festival awards. Her later work, Fest of Duty, follows two adolescent girls as they transition into adulthood. The film won the OXFAM award at IDFA in 2014.

Firouzeh’s latest film, Radiograph of a Family premiered at IDFA and received the main prize of the festival for the best film and has been traveling across the globe to numerous festivals since then.

Similar to several other well established documentary makers, Firouzeh has been repeatedly summoned and questioned by the Iranian authorities because of her works and her activities as a documentary filmmaker, focused on sensitive topics. On May 10th 2022 she was arrested in Tehran after her home was searched and her personal and professional belongings such as mobile phone, hard drives and laptop were confiscated. After an international outcry, she was eventually released on bail but has been banned from leaving the country since then.