Women Without Men

Colour, 35 mm
Germany, Austria, France, 2009, 99 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Iran, 1953. Growing leftist tendencies in the country are violently suppressed with the help of Western powers trying to maintain their control over Iranian crude. But the political crisis is merely a backdrop for a mosaic composed of the lives of four women: Fakhri, who is disgusted by her general of a husband; the anorexic prostitute Zarin; Faezeh, who loves Munis’s brother, a fundamentalist who tyrannizes Munis. In screenwriter Shoja Azari’s hands, Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel changes into an intimate tale that debut director Shirin Neshat uses to confront the lives of the four temperamentally and socially distinct heroines. In the tempestuous summer of 1953, the women seek tranquility and shelter for their souls in a vast orchard. This work of magical realism, by a US-based Iranian director internationally renowned for her original photography and video art projects, took a Silver Lion at the 2009 Venice IFF and screened at numerous international festivals.

About the director

Shirin Neshat (b. 1957, Ghazvin, Iran) grew up in a well-placed Iranian family with pro-Western views. At age 17, she left for Berkeley to study at the University of California, then made her way in the USA as a photographer. She came to narrative film via lyrical video installations (eg. "Rapture”, 1999, "Turbulent”, 1998), and she has enjoyed independent shows at New York’s Whitney Museum, and the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montreal. The main topics of her work have long been gender politics and cultural self-definition. Her directorial debut Women Without Men, which she shot in Morocco as a loose follow-up to her previous work (primarily "Zarin,” a video installation, 2005), earned her a Silver Lion at the Venice IFF 2009. She lives in New York, and has been barred from returning to her native country for her unambiguous criticism of the position of women in Iranian Muslim society.