Two Women


	"TWO WOMEN "
	Iran/1999/35mm/Color/96min.
	in Farsi with English Subtitle
	*SYNOPSIS:* Country girl Fereshteh and city girl Roya, schoolmates at Tehran University in the early '80s, become friends when the former tutors the latter to pay her way through architecture school. Their friendship and their innocent fun are clouded only by the presence of a young man who stalks the pretty Fereshteh demanding that she marry him. Fereshteh brushes him off and the two girls feel strong enough to disregard his advances, until one day the stalker throws a bottle of acid at Fereshteh's cousin, mistaking him for her boyfriend. Blaming her for bringing disgrace onto the family, Fereshteh's father forces her to return home from university, which, anyway, is shut down in the social turmoil following the Islamic revolution. But Fereshteh's troubles aren't over. The stalker follows her to her remote hometown and provokes a car accident for which Fereshteh is jailed. Family pressure once again decides Fereshteh's destiny, forcing her into a marriage with a man she doesn't love. Her friend Roya, meanwhile, is living precisely the sort of life that Fereshteh aspires to. The two female characters in my film are a single person with two personalities -- the heroine's actual personality and her potential personality, what she is and what she wants to be but can't because of society and its mores. -- Tahmineh Milani