Angels in the House of Sun remains one of Rakhshan Banietemad’s most articulate critiques of the treatment of women in contemporary Iranian society. Male-on-female violence is an all-too-common occurrence in Iran. It’s part of a wider exploration of gender imbalance that permeates so much of Banietemad’s work. Here, the filmmaker journeys into the backstreets of one of the poorer districts of Tehran, to a shelter where women can find safety, community and a sense of belonging with others who understand their situation – whose lives have been marked by suffering and humiliation.
