Like the award-winning ‘For Sama’, Eva Mulvad’s moving documentary charts life for one family in peril over the course of a six-year period.
Leila was trapped in a loveless marriage in Tehran when she met Sahand. Soon after giving birth to their son, an act that would inevitably lead to death for them in Iran, they escaped to Turkey. Andover the next few years and with increasing desperation they would attempt to find a home where they wouldn’t be persecuted for the simple act of falling in love. If this sounds straightforward, Mulvad’s film captures the anguish felt by the couple as they attempt to start their lives anew and fight any possibility of returning to Iran and what would be a grim fate. At the same time, the film highlights the inefficiency of asylum laws in dealing with the nuances – and extreme circumstances – of individual cases.
★★★★ “Here’s a documentary that gives off warmth like a radiator, generating huge amounts of empathy” - Cath Clarke, The Guardian
