Women of the Sun: A Chronology of Seeing

On the edge of Iran’s Lout Desert, an old caravanserai becomes the site of a surprising video workshop. Director Hamed Zolfaghari equips a group of women with cameras. They are in the process of starting a co-op that will control each step in the making and sale of their handicrafts. Freed from expensive middlemen and their stifling rural identity, the participants achieve greater independence and higher incomes. But as the film’s title suggests, there is also a revolution of the gaze at work here: by recording their emancipatory adventure and conservative villagers’ resistance to it, almost in real time, the women reclaim control over the narrative of their lives. Zolfaghari and the collective’s members offer us a shining example of collaborative filmmaking. (Charlotte Selb)

Presented in collaboration with Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN)

Les femmes du soleil : une chronologie du regard