Around the World: Iran, an Inside Look

Taraneh is a good girl, who doesn't let life's circumstances ruin her. But after her husband runs off, she discovers she is pregnant. Against all odds, Taraneh decides to keep the child. This film endows its melodramatic plot in utter and breathtaking simplicity.

Presenting ten scenes, all set in the protagonist's car, with two small cameras pointed respectively on the driver and her passengers, Iranian cinematic master Abbas Kiarostami unfolds a picture of the state of women in Iran. Ten crosses the boundaries between fiction and documentary film.

Gabbeh is a colorful carpet produced in southwestern Iran. A woman washes one of the carpets and discovers in it the image of a beautiful girl called Gabbeh. The sad Gabbeh has been forbidden to see her beloved until her uncle returns from the big city. 

A former policeman approaches director Makhmalbaf and reminds him that he promised him a role in a film. The two met when the then 17-year-old Makhmalbaf stabbed this policeman. Makhmalbaf suggests that they reconstruct the event from their own point-of-view.  

Mohammed, a boy at Tehran's institute for the blind, waits for his father to come pick him up for summer vacation. The father finally shows up and reluctantly takes Mohammed back to the village. Meanwhile we witness the boy's harmonious relationship with his grandmother, with his two sisters, and with nature.