Documentary · Family

Daughters of Malakeh

Three generations of women, wedged between two worlds, struggle to give shape to their lives in present-day Iran.

In public, Maryam wears a headscarf and obeys the rules of the state. But in the privacy of her own home, she’s the breadwinner who runs the show, along with her mother and younger sister, Ghazal. When Maryam decides to get married, a blushing bride at 45, her worlds collide. With the support and encouragement of her family, she reconciles her personal autonomy with the expectations of a traditional marriage. Brother and co-director Sharog Heshmat Manesh presents an intimate portrait of family life in Iran, candidly capturing his sister’s wedding jitters, her fear of giving up her independence and of being too old to break free from her habits, and her attempts to add a pre-nuptial stipulation to the Marriage Guarantee.