Woman and Child (2025)

[Cremildo]

The contemporary family drama of revenge and forgiveness stars Parinaz Izadyar (Law of Tehran) as a widowed nurse struggling with her rebellious son. Tensions reach a peak during the betrothal ceremony with her new boyfriend, but when a tragic accident occurs, she finds herself confronting feelings of betrayal as she seeks justice.

From Saeed Roustaee, director of Leila's Brothers.

[Cremildo]

Causing controversy in Iran sight-unseen, prompting filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof to intervene.

Rasoulof intervened after a group of filmmakers who oppose the Iranian regime claimed that Cannes is bowing to Iran’s repressive authorities by selecting “Woman and Child,” which they say was produced with government permission and should therefore be considered “a propaganda film,” as the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA) has put it in an Instagram post.

Besides labelling “Woman and Child” as “propaganda,” IIFMA, which is headed by Dubai-based producer Kaveh Farnam, also objects to the fact that the female cast of “Woman and Child,” starting with its protagonist, Parinaz Izadyar, appear in the film wearing the country’s mandatory hijab that many women in Iran have now shed in protest. The organization, which claims to represent hundreds of members of Iran’s film community – more than half of whom they say are in Iran – considers this a betrayal of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement spawned by Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died in 2022 while in police custody for allegedly wearing a loose headscarf.

[BluBonnet]

Iranian Director Saeed Roustayee on Making ‘Woman and Child’ With a Government Permit and Hijabs: I Wouldn’t ‘Have Been Able to Make a Film of This Scale Underground’

Iranian director Saeed Roustayee is back in Cannes with “Woman and Child,” a female empowerment drama premiering in competition. The film follows a 40-year-old widowed nurse named Mahnaz, who is struggling with a rebellious son and other complications in a heavily oppressive patriarchal context.

Roustayee’s new work segues from the somewhat similarly themed “Leila’s Brothers,” which launched from Cannes in 2022 and led to the director being sentenced to jail time for screening the film without government approval, though Roustayee did not go behind bars.

Paradoxically, even before “Woman and Child” screened, the film came under fire — sight unseen — from some Iranian industry circles. They claimed that Roustayee sold out to the Iranian government because he produced the film with their permission, and also due to the fact that the women on screen all wear hijabs — which is not a realistic depiction of the current state of affairs given the widespread ongoing rebellion against the mandatory hijab rule across the country.

Roustayee has been passionately defended against these accusations by fellow Iranian helmer Mohammad Rasoulof, who in May 2024 escaped from Iran to Europe after receiving a jail sentence from the country’s authorities for making “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which premiered at Cannes with the director in tow last year.

[BluBonnet]

Woman And Child’ Director Saeed Roustaee Hints At Fears Of Arrest In Iran Over Cannes Film: “I hope I’ll Be Able To Go Back Safely”