A groundbreaking feature film, both in style and content. A riveting live action story is presented in a new animation style that helps illustrate how moral lines can be blurred by necessity. A young female reporter returns to Iran to care for her ailing mother, but is soon drawn into reporting on a forbidden subject - the women and girls who prostitute themselves in sham 'temporary marriages.' Arrested, imprisoned, and beaten by officials who demand that she confess to her 'sins' (of trying to tell the truth), Roxana realizes that the only way to survive is to seduce her interrogator in prison. Amir falls in love with her, and against all odds, gets her released from prison, an act that helps her escape the country at the expense of his own demise
Direction
Rotoscoped realism makes the prison feel inescapable.
Acting
Wolf's silence speaks louder than any dialogue.
Writing
The 'temporary marriage' euphemism exposed as systematic abuse.
Director
Elahe Massumi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Iran's actual 'sigheh' temporary marriage system lets men contract sex with religious cover, which Massumi exposes as state-sanctioned exploitation.
Director Elahe Massumi fled Iran herself; this is the first rotoscoped feature about Iranian women's prison experience.
US
