Mahdieh, a photographer who has been covering anti-government protests in Iran, is unable to continue her work due to the government crackdown. Ironically, her father is a mullah (a leader of a mosque) and an adamant supporter of the Iranian government. The conflict between the father and the daughter is obvious, but that is not what the film focuses on. Mullah’s Daughter follows Mahdieh until she tells her family her plans to leave the country, which she reveals to the audience early on. The large social frame that is Iran; the smallest unit of community called family; and free-thinking individuals in between. The mullah and his daughter fail to persuade each other, but the daughter does not abandon her passion, and her father does not force her to stay. The director of this film—the Mullah’s Daughter—does not dramatize the story of her family into a tragedy or a comedy. Instead, this quiet family drama reverberates with a thunderous boom of Iranian society and a very personal struggle of a woman who wishes to follow her dreams. (KANG Sowon)