All Three of Us

In Iran, Hibat organises against the Shah's regime and is caught. He spends years in prison. The revolution frees him, but the new government turns out to be more repressive still and he and his wife have to flee. They build a new life in a housing estate on the edge of Paris. The child born there narrates the film. The subject is not migration but how people who never gave up political struggle carry it on in a new country. Hibat and Fereshteh start an association on the estate, teach the children and take on the work nobody else wants. The film draws them as active people rather than victims. The form moves quickly between comedy and tragedy. The prison scenes are harsh, the estate scenes almost playful; the tonal shift is deliberate and mostly works. The production is the director's own family history. Kheiron plays his father himself and the narrative largely follows real events, with actual footage of the family at the end. It is his first feature. Leïla Bekhti plays the mother and Gérard Darmon the grandfather. Who it is for: viewers who like immigrant family stories and French films of mixed register. Who it is not for: anyone expecting detail on the political background; the film passes over Iranian history quickly.