All My Sisters

In Tehran, sisters Mahya and Zahra grow up as carefree young girls: swinging on the playground bars, playing with Barbies, getting up to mischief. But the many restrictions imposed by society gradually creep into their lives via their traditional family. At the first signs of puberty, the headscarf is brought out of the closet, their grandmother tells them religious stories, and suddenly all kinds of fun things turn out to be sinful.

At the same time, the sisters—now including a third sister, Maleka, who is born later in the film—develop into critical, socially engaged young women. Their uncle, filmmaker Massoud Bakhshi, follows them from their early childhood in 2007 to the present, 18 years later. In this frame story, he shows his footage to the now-adult women.

Bakhshi uses optical tricks to circumvent restrictions regarding the visibility of women’s hair or body contours while he records how the sisters learn to stand up and fight for their rights and freedom.