Joonam

Sierra Urich, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, sets out on a journey to understand the women in her family and, ultimately, herself, by retracing her family’s past and dissecting their memories up to, during, and after the Iranian Islamic Revolution that forced them to immigrate to the United States. —M.G.

Raised in rural Vermont, Sierra Urich speaks little Farsi—unlike her fluent Iranian-born mother, Mitra, and grandmother, Behjat. Until now, Urich’s knowledge of her ancestry has relied on old family photos and her mother’s filtered translation of the traumatic life she left behind. Still, Urich longs to know her family’s stories: the elaborate wedding of her grandmother, the youthful rebellion of her mother, and details of the horrific dangers her mother has always shielded from her. Determined to discover the Iran her family fled, Urich challenges her family to revisit their past and fill in the wistful, often painful, gaps. The deeply personal documentary JOONAM illustrates three generations of women flowing in and out of conversation, revealing each individual’s complex relationship with the family’s homeland. —A.B.

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