Gold and Copper

Seyed Reza has moved to Tehran with his family to study religion. His wife Zahra looks after their two children and brings money in by weaving rugs. One evening Zahra collapses; at the hospital she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. From then on Reza has to keep up his studies and take on the whole running of the house. Homayoun Assadian's Iranian film shows a man studying for the clergy not as somebody who teaches but as somebody who learns: cooking, changing nappies, walking a child to school. The people around him look down on it. The telling sets religious knowledge against everyday responsibility and puts the second one first. Negar Javaherian and Behrooz Shoeibi take the leads.