Facing Mirrors

Negar Azarbayjani

First Iranian movie starring a transgender as central figure is a progressive road movie in which fate brings together two very different women, Rana and Adineh, as they drive around Tehran.

Rana is a young mother from a poor, traditional Iranian family. Ever since her husband was unlawfully imprisoned, she secretly works as a taxi driver to financially support her family. During one of her taxi rides she meets Adineh, a woman from a rich family who has fled her elderly home. Gradually, Rana finds out what motivated Adineh to run away: she is transgender and refuses to be married off. Adineh wants to be a man for the rest of her life and prepares for a sex-change operation. This is hard to accept for conservative-minded Rana, as her passenger’s lifestyle goes against everything she believes in and everything she has been taught. Yet little by little an improbable friendship between both women develops.

Credits

Director
Negar Azarbayjani
Producer
Fereshteh Taerpour
Year
2011
Country of production
Iran
Type
Fiction
Duration
102 minutes
Spoken language
Persian
Subtitles
NL
Production company
Geen
Dutch distributor
Cinemien