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Winner, L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye Award) for best documentary, 2026 Cannes Film Festival
In this epic cultural history of Iran from the late ’70s to the present, the filmmaker takes in sweeping historical and political events but grounds them deeply in her personal story by showing their impact on some indelible characters, each of whom dominates a “chapter” (father, teacher, uncle, friend, daughter). These “home movies” are glimpses behind the curtain of oppression that humanize the people who are continually caught in a struggle in which every step forward is met with brutality and violence. The fourth chapter, featuring some of the most harrowing first-person journalism caught on a camera, begins with director Ahangarani filming a 1997 street demonstration that spirals, with sickening inevitability, into a military massacre of innocents. The film is an elegy for Iran, the Iran that could have been, and the Iranian people who, as the film’s conclusion states, are now caught between internal oppression and a forced war with very little room for hope. ~SM