3 WOMEN (SE ZAN) Narrative Competition

Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Manijeh Hekmat unfurls a beautifully paced, visually rich and emotionally insightful story about a family of three women. On a day that should be ordinary, Minou, a museum rug conservator, sets out with her aging, senile mother to visit the doctor. Already distracted and fretting over her daughter Pegah, who’s simply dropped out of college and stopped taking calls, Minou’s day completely deteriorates when she becomes embroiled in a professional battle over an antique rug. In the chaos, she loses both her mother and the rug. Minou frantically searches Tehran for her family and the carpet, not knowing that Pegah has embarked on her own journey, camera in hand, through the Iranian countryside. Meanwhile, Minou’s mother, clinging tightly to the precious rug, chases down her own past. Anchored by Niki Karimi’s stunning performance as Minou, a lonely single mother struggling to balance familial responsibility, career and her own search for meaning, Hekmat’s film is part road movie, part fable and part family drama. Touched with sublime beauty, humor and heartbreaking tenderness, her vision of Iran as a place of fiercely independent women and unfathomable depths is stirring and inspiring.