Donya, a lonely Afghan refugee and former translator, spends her twenties drifting through a meager existence in Fremont, California. Shuttling between her job writing fortunes for a fortune cookie factory and sessions with her eccentric therapist, Donya suffers from insomnia and survivor's guilt over those still left behind in Kabul as she desperately searches for love.
Bahman Mohassess was a celebrated artist at the time of the Shah. Trained in Italy, he created sculptures and paintings in his homeland. But audiences often took offence at the pronounced phalli on his mostly naked bronze figures and his work was regularly censored. All traces of him were lost after the revolution. It was said he destroyed his remaining paintings and disappeared.
Behjat Sadr is one of the pioneers and masters of modern art in Iran. This film is a journey into the life and works of a poetic and brilliant painter. Ms. Sadr guides us through her intense, find compelling canvases, order musing on her process, pharmacy her influences, and her complicated relationship with fame and mortality. Her highly abstract mind wanders into dark, mysterious beautiful spaces, and the camera follows her, providing visual access and correlatives to her imagination.
