'How did religion become a political system and manage to penetrate our privacy, creating a feeling of anxiety around the subject of sexuality' How can love and sexuality find a way through the myriad of prohibitions and interdicts in contemporary Iranian society' These are the questions at the heart of Mitra Farahani's part-fictional, part-documentary film.

'Mitra Farahani [says] 'Today, if you ask an Iranian to define love, their response will inevitably be a poetical reference. Poetry is of fundamental importance in Iran... It is impossible to speak of love, and therefore of sexuality, without speaking in terms of poetry'... Farahani chose a poem by Iraj Mirza which is free of ambiguity; the love in question is passionate love, right down to its carnal dimension. Farahani states: 'I wanted to reveal via the fictional and documentary elements, the contradiction between a society once so well-versed in combining culture, Islam and the art of loving, and an environment today whereby a couple who embrace are forced to ask themselves if they are committing a grave sin. - 2004 Berlin Film Festival

D/S Mitra Farahani P Cyriac Auriol WS Small Camera L Farsi w/English subtitles TD Video/Col/2003/70mins

Mitra Farahani was born in Tehran, Iran in 1975. Films include: Tableau du Bois (2000), Just a Woman (2001,co-dir).