Directed by Nahid Persson, who brought us Four wives - one man (2007), the documentary follows the grim day-to-day lives of two women, Mina and Fariba, in an equally grim corner of the capital city. Making ends meet as sex workers in a country notorious for its curtailment of women’s rights, the two friends juggle their roles as single parents and negotiate their way around the prohibitive laws against prostitution. With their husbands in prison for an assortment of crimes, no relatives willing to help, and a drug habit, the clandestine flesh trade is their last and only resort.

The third character in this bleak tale is their neighbour Habib, a skirt-chasing elderly man. Earlier in the film, he is seen accosting a 17- year old girl and asking for her hand in “sigheh”, a Shi’a-compliant temporary marriage that can last anywhere from 2 hours to 99 years. Astonishingly, she accepts his proposal. The couple approach a local mullah to marry them on the condition that they both agree on a time limit, which to my mind was surreal. Leila, the teenage bride, agrees to six months of “marriage” with Habib and is reminded that despite her husband’s age, he’s a far better catch than any of the younger men around. She gets her own back by disappearing, taking with her the ‘down payment’ paid by Habib on the day they married. Clearly on a rebound and wanting sex without the moral and criminal complications of zina, Habib soon asks Fariba to marry him for a few days. He makes no qualms about his so-called noble intentions to marrying her: he simply sees it as an act of mercy to provide for Fariba and her son. Mercy has never been so cruelly short-term.

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Given Persson’s penchant for filming the darker realities in Iran in her detached, almost-exploitative documentary style, it’s perhaps not surprising that her films have been criticised for eliciting an unbalanced reaction from her target audience who primarily hail from Sweden. For viewers who have not visited or know well enough about the country, it is understandable that Persson’s documentaries can easily stir feelings of outrage and sadness towards an oppressive regime that calls itself moral, but above all, Islamic. Though ultimately, what she wishes for in her films is a positive and constructive reaction to a state of affairs so negatively-viewed in the media. She says in an interview with the Danish Film Institute:

When I was in the revolution along with so many other young people, we wanted to change the world, but now I am at an age where I would be content to change just one thing. But I need to get close to the people in my film. I feel for them. They are not just characters in my film - they are my friends, my sisters.

excerpted from Muslimah Media Watch

I havent seen the film yet but I am going to make time this week to see it.  I am interested in her relationships with the subjects of her film.  I love the idea of creating art for friends about friends with friends and consciously creating positive change in their lives and yours through the art.

I also feel understand that shift between wanting to change the world and being happy with just being able to change one thing in the world.  Like it would be enough to be able to change one thing because this world as we know it is so calcified so set in its ways so impervious to change.  Or at least it can feel that way sometimes.