Radiograph of a Family

On the day of her wedding, Tayi, in Tehran, marries the photograph of Hossein, in Geneva, where she joins him shortly afterwards. The distance that separated them on that day persists from one country to another, gradually finding its way into their shared life. Back in Iran following the birth of their daughter, Tayi, a religious activist, finds a space there in which to forge her own identity, whereas Hossein, a secular progressive, would have preferred to stay and live in Switzerland. Looking through the family archives and delicately using their cinematic resources, Firouzeh Khosrovani recounts the differences that separate her parents from each other—while implicitly reflecting those of an Iranian society during the periods preceding and following the Revolution. With her childhood home and the transformations that it undergoes as her anchor point, the director constitutes the fragmented account of a couple’s history through the memories that she projects and the images that remain—revealing with strength and precision the complexity of a relationship and that of the shaping of our intimate, social and political identities. 

Camille Kaiser