Zan o Bacheh (Woman and Child): “a screaming woman” in the mind of Saeed Roustaee

A woman, her children and her boyfriend. Mahnaz is a 40-year-old nurse and single mother, who is about to marry Hamid. Her son, Aliyar, has been expelled from school. One day, an accident turns everything upside down, and Mahnaz strives to get reparation.

Saeed Roustaee describes Mahnaz as a character “who screamed in his mind”:

“The film tells the story of a woman fighting all the men who made her live in a patriarchal society that deprived her of all her rights, including that of a mother.”

Three years earlier, the Iranian filmmaker put the spotlight on another female character in Leila’s Brothers. The heroine, a contemporary of Mahnaz, single-handedly dealt with her entire middle-class family, which was hit by an economic and social crisis.

This film cost Saeed Roustaee a six-month prison sentence and a five-year filming ban imposed by the Islamic regime. As for the lead actress, Taraneh Alidoosti, she was sentenced to five years in prison after publishing a photo of herself without her hijab. In both cases, the sentences were eventually lifted.

For Woman and Child, Saeed Roustaee had to compromise with the censorship of the Islamic Republic. Even though he had to comply with certain restrictions, such as having the women wear the hijab, he maintains that he has not made a propaganda film, rather a film about social resistance.

The filmmaker reunites with actress Parinaz Izadyar for this film, who already starred in his first feature film released in 2016, Life and a Day, and was part of the cast of Just 6.5. She co-stars with Payman Maadi, who came to Cannes in 2022 with Saeed Roustaee for his in-Competition presentation of Leila’s Brothers.