Filmmaker Statement

I created Maryam Joon to bring light to the double standards many Iranian women have had to face living under the Islamic Republic. For four decades a tyrannical regime has stripped women of their basic human rights and has hindered their ability to flourish. When Maryam discovers a VHS tape of her father's, she soon uncovers an aspect of human experience she has yet to encounter directly -- one that changes her conception of herself and her family. Despite the physical and psychological shelter she's been put into, Maryam still has the fundamental yearning and urge to separate as an adult: to explore her place in the world and the new contours of a changing self, which includes a sexual dimension. No amount of societal control can change this natural process. In the end, she still finds a way to embrace and explore this part of herself; she can be sequestered away from the world, but like a seed in the ground, she still finds a way into the light.