The year is 1988, Iraqi bombs rain down on Tehran while Iranians celebrate the New Year. Gilaneh, a peasant widow whose son Ismaeel has gone off to war, travels with her pregnant daughter Maygol to Tehran. Terrified and uncertain of what they will find there, mother and daughter make the perilous trip into the capital city, just as its inhabitants are fleeing in the opposite direction.

Fifteen years later, the United States attacks Baghdad. Ismaeel has long since returned from the earlier war, his body devastated by chemical weapons. A weathered Gilaneh cares for him day and night. The television flashes with scenes of the new war in which Iraq is now the invaded and not the invader, but Gilaneh is too estranged from world affairs to pay attention. She has sacrificed everything for her children, but her own hopes and dreams have been aborted by war and she is marked with bitterness and regret. In Persian w/English subtitles

Rakhshan Bani-Etemad: Undoubtedly Iran’s best-known female filmmaker, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad was born in 1954, she studied film at the University of Dramatic Arts in Tehran and began working in cinema in 1984. She began her career making documentary films for the national broadcasting service. Finding little visibility for representation of women’s issues, she quickly opted to work independently. She earned international recognition in 1995 when her film, Rusari Abi (The Blue-Veiled) received several international prizes including the Bronze Panther at the 48th Locarno Film Festival.

Her filmography includes: Zard-e Ghanari (Canary Yellow, 1988), Pul-e Khareji (Foreign Currency, 1989), Nargess (1991), Banoo-Ye Ordibehesht (The May Lady, 1998), Zir-e Poost-e Shahr (Under the Skin of the City, 2000), Ruz-egar-e Ma (Our Times, 2001), Gilaneh (2005), and Khoon Bazi (Mainline, 2006)

Mohsen Abdolvahab: Born in 1957 in Tehran, Mohsen Abdolvahab graduated from the IRIB University and began working as an editor in 1980. Since then he has made more than thirty documentary and fiction features, and has received a number of national and international awards; his documentary Hamsaran-e Haj-Abbas (The Wives of Haj Abbas, 2001) earned the Silver Wolf at the Amsterdam festival in 2001. His filmography includes: Attempt, (1989-1990), Searching for Labor in Two Shots (1991-1998), Lokh Mazar (2000), Hamsaran-e Haj-Abbas (The Wives of Haj Abbas, 2001), The Heritage of the Sun (2002). His collaboration with Bani-Etemad began with her film, Nargess and has continued in all her films, culminating with Gilaneh, which he co-directed with her.