Born in Evin

In her directing debut, German-Iranian actress Maryam Zaree confronts the circumstances of her birth inside one of the world’s most notorious prisons. Her parents, political opponents to Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini, spent years in prison, and then managed to find asylum in Germany. But they never talked about their persecution and imprisonment, so Zaree turns to other survivors of Evin, talks to experts, and searches for children born in the same prison. What are the personal consequences of persecution and violence when the same perpetrators remain in power while the victims internalize their stories? And what does it mean, politically, to face the silence within the family? – Alissa Simon