Dream of Grape Gardens

In 1984, my family left Afghanistan to search for my brother Alireza. He had disappeared in Iran years earlier during a business trip with my father. After an argument, Alireza didn't return to the hotel, and amidst Iran's protests against the last king, he couldn't be located. Father lied upon his return saying that my brother enrolled in a boarding school. When Mother learned the truth, she went to Iran, leaving everything behind. Arriving in Iran, we were stripped of basic rights as Afghan refugees. One day, Afghani children were barred from attending school. My mother handed me a camera, laying the foundation for my career as a filmmaker. Fleeing Afghanistan in 2021 due to the Taliban's resurgence mirrored my mother's journey four decades earlier. This film is a multigenerational tale about a mother desperate to find her missing son and a daughter yearning for emancipation within the Afghan refugee community in Iran.

Director’s statement
For three decades I looked at the picture of a little boy on our wall and heard my mother say that her missing son, will return one day.

As a filmmaker, I am interested in the situations of young girls within middle eastern society. For Dream of Grape Gardens, I wanted to turn my camera towards my mother and look at my relationship with her. She gave me my first camera and it was a crucial tool to help me survive in an oppressive society.

For all these years, our family life was punctuated by Alireza’s search. I did not know that the endless search for my missing brother would lead me to countless other stories of exile and heartbreak within our marginalized community of Afghan refugees in Iran.

I continue to use my camera today to show the reality of the forgotten people. This story is about two women from two different generations, traveling through time and memories, through the present and the past, in the hope of finding something they have both lost.