The Snow Calls

After bearing three daughters, Mina has just one more chance: her next child has to be a boy or her husband will marry another woman. That’s the tradition. The very pregnant Mina and her family live in southwestern Iran, where the rules of the Bakhtiari tribe apply. This time, the expectant mother decides not to have an ultrasound scan, for fear of the result and the gossip that would ensue. She is already under enough pressure from her in-laws, although she does still have people on her side too.

As the snowdrifts become deeper, and the outside door will barely open anymore, the atmosphere in the household becomes increasingly oppressive. Will there be a happy ending with the birth of a son, or are we watching a life that is about to fall apart?

Seemingly unnoticed, director Marjan Khosravi films family life, even during the most difficult moments. The Snow Calls is an intimate and unadorned portrait—an honest film, about the painful tension between love and age-old tradition.