SYNOPSIS

The arrival in a snow-covered Hamburg is somewhat cold and disappointing. No one to embrace, no one to prepare her a hot meal. When Faezeh leaves Tehran in 2009, she leaves behind her best friends Narges and Hamideh. With them, a sense of home existed. Their spontaneous bond had been strengthened by their love of cinema and took shape in the images of the films they made, in which they performed for one another. As a teenager, Faezeh was already filming, preserving. Having lost both her parents before she reached adulthood, she understands the fragility of relationships – of what truly matters. Faced with an Iran that has no place for their creative fire and vital energy, emigration and exile have driven them apart, at least physically. Over thirteen years of life and as many filmed correspondences, the images of the three friends explore the notion of home and the bonds that matter. Thirteen years of filmed correspondence, where friendship and cinema create a fragile space for belonging, in times of political unrest and repression.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I left my homeland, Iran, more than fifteen years ago — not because I was forced to, but by choice. I can return at any time. And yet I live with a persistent sense of displacement: a stranger everywhere, at home nowhere. A self-imposed exile. A life lived in between.
Some say we are shaped more by our experiences than by the places we come from. But our experiences are inseparable from place. Distance does not only change where we live — it reshapes what we witness, what we share, and what we come to understand, or no longer understand, about each other.
This film grows out of that distance. Through my friendship with two women I grew up with — both filmmakers — I reflect on how our lives have unfolded under radically different conditions: staying, leaving, being unable to return. Across borders and separation, the camera becomes a way to remain present in each other’s lives, to sustain a connection that physical proximity no longer allows.
I am not searching for a definitive answer to where home is. Instead, this film asks whether friendship and cinema can hold what has been fractured — creating a fragile space of belonging that exists only through the act of making, looking, and listening together.

SCREENINGS

Visions du Reél 2026 (world premiere)

Feature documentary
95 minutes | Germany 2026

Faezeh Nikoozad web

starring HAMIDEH, SARGES & FAEZEH

author & director FAEZEH NIKOOZAD montage FARAHNAZ SHARIFI composition ATENA ESHTIAGHI cinematography STEPHAN ROSCHE, DAVOUD ASHRAFI, FAEZEH NIKOOZAD sound recording, sound design & foleys PATRICK DADACZYNSKI additional sound recording SHAHIN POURDADASHI , ERICK ESPINOSA production manager Iran SAMUEL ABRAHIMI sound mix ROMAN VEHLKEN color grading & mastering TIM LIEBE additional editing SIMON QUACK, FAEZEH NIKOOZAD title graphics UNA HELBIG dramaturgical collaboration DANIEL FAEZI, RENE FRÖLKE editor assistant MAYA CONNORS translations BAHAR ENSAFI subtitles SUBS HAMBURG

producers Germany JULIA CÖLLEN, KARSTEN KRAUSE & FRANK SCHEUFFELE , AEZEH NIKOOZAD

a production by FÜNFERFILM & FAEZEH NIKOOZAD

funded by MOIN FILMFÖRDERUNG HAMBURG SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN
BKM - DIE BEAUFTRAGTE DER BUNDESREGIERUNG FÜR KULTUR UND MEDIEN
CLAUSSEN-SIMON-STIFTUNG

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