Climbing Iran

Nasim Eshqi, an Iranian, and Francesca Borghetti, an Italian, chat with each other from Iran to Italy. They got in touch after Francesca read about her as the only woman capable of opening routes in the mountains of Iran. Francesca would like to tell Nasim's story to the world, and to do so, she raises questions of representation: can she portray her without a veil? Nasim's answer is clear: outside her Islamic country, Iran, yes. And so the filmmaker draws on her repertoire of private photos, from which she evinces an impervious and nonconformist path of evolution. Born in 1982, at age nine according to Islamic law she had to put on a veil and cover her skin and hair. That was the dividing line for her and her sister from the lives of her two male siblings, who previously felt no difference from their sisters.