Filmreihe Donnerstagskino: Ethnologische Themen der Zeit
Film by Firouzeh Khosrovani, Norway/Iran/Switzerland, 2020, 81'; Languages: French and Persian, English subtitles.
Radiograph of a Family
“Mother married a photo of Father”, says director Firouzeh Khosrovani in the opening of this personal documentary. She is not speaking metaphorically: her mother Tayi literally married a portrait of Hossein in Teheran while he was in Switzerland studying radiology and unable to travel to his homeland for the wedding. The event illustrates the abyss in their marriage: Hossein is a secular man and Tayi a traditional Muslim woman.
Through photographs and videos from the family archive and added fictional conversations, we discover the family’s change during the years of revolution in Iran. Using her own childhood as focus of the narrative, Firouzeh Khosrovani tells her family history which can also be interpreted as a sort of x-ray laying bare the conflicts of the Iranian society during the revolution.
