HONEYJOON Discovery

On the lush volcanic shores of the Azores, June (Ayden Mayeri) travels with her Persian-Kurdish mother, Lela (Amira Casar), one year after the loss of her father. What begins as a much-needed holiday quickly becomes something deeper: a reckoning with memory, identity and the fractures between them. June aches to rediscover her spark, while Lela yearns to confront the ghosts of their past — haunted by exile from Iran after the revolution, and stirred by the urgency of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement echoing across her homeland. Amid their sun-drenched escape, the two single women find themselves awkwardly among throngs of honeymooners. When a charming local guide enters the picture, their uneasy détente is disrupted, opening the door to unexpected renewal. Blending humor with loss, and with the breathtaking paradise of the Azores as its backdrop, HONEYJOON explores the unspoken distances between mothers and daughters, the weight of exile and memory and the fragile beauty of learning how to begin again. –Mimi Brody