The Day I Became a Woman

Meshkini fully emerged as a commanding and provocative force in Iranian cinema with her first feature, a remarkable portmanteau portrait of three women at various stages in their lives, shot on the island of Kish. Although the first story best exemplifies the film’s title, focusing on the moments just before a girl becomes a “woman” on her ninth birthday, all three highlight the structural, social, cultural, spatial and patriarchal restrictions faced by Iranian women, while showing us remarkable moments – such as the extraordinary middle sequence featuring an increasingly desperate women’s bicycle race – of snatched freedom.

DCP