After the death of Tatsuya’s only son, the family loses the only male heir to their family name. The tragedy also causes Tatsuya’s wife to leave him. As a result, the family’s sickly mother pressures Tatsuya to remarry, albeit with a woman he is not sure he truly cares for. Tatsuya’s daughter, Yuko, also feels obligated to keep the family going and considers marrying a man as a Mukoyoshi, which means he will adopt Yuko’s family name, yet she is reluctant to do this because of her feelings for someone else. Both Tatsuya and Yuko are caught in a dilemma that forces them to choose between family obligation and their own desires.
Ida Panahandeh was born in Tehran, Iran. She obtained a degree in Film Photography in 2002 and a master’s in Film Direction in 2005, both from the Arts University of Tehran, where she began her film career with several short films. After university she was invited to direct films for Iranian television, with which she won awards at numerous national festivals. In 2009 she took part in the Berlin ‘Talent Campus’. ‘Nahid’ is her first feature and it was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where it won a special prize (Prix de l’Avenir). It also won the Golden Shika Award at the 2016 Nara International Film Festival. Israfil (2017) is the second feature of Ida Panahandeh.