Film Screening:

Women Without Men
(Shirin Neshat & Shoja Azari, 2009, 95 min, Germany/France/Morocco, in Farsi & English w/ English subtitles, Color, DVD)

-- Introduced by Prof. Didem Havlioğlu (AMES); Q&A to follow!

Women Without Men, an adaptation of Shahrnush Parsipur's magical realist novel, is Iranian artist, Shirin Neshat's, first feature length film. The story chronicles the intertwining lives of four Iranian women during the summer of 1953; a cataclysmic moment in Iranian history when an American led, British backed coup d'état brought down the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, and reinstalled the Shah to power.

"This beautifully shot film, set in Tehran during the period leading up to the 1953 coup which toppled the democratically elected government, is a quiet and understated look at the lives of four very different women's struggle for freedom." -- London Times

"Neshat has directed a quietly tremendous film which ensnares both the heart and the mind." -- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Cost: Free and open to the public.

Sponsors: The Duke University Middle East Studies Center (DUMESC), AMES Presents, the Program in Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), and Duke University Libraries.