Filmmaker Nahid Sarvestani was a young left-wing student when the Iranian revolution broke out in 1979. The winners are well-known and are in power to this day. The left-wing political movement that she was part of was among the losers. Many of her fellow students and comrades vanished into jail and never came out again, among them was her brother Rostam. Nahid managed to flee to Sweden.

Thirty years after the revolution, protest reawakened in Iran. The images in the news evoke Nahid’s old, suppressed emotions of her brother’s death and her survival. She decides to look for her old comrades. She finds many were executed. But, she does find Parvaneh, Sudabeh,  Monir, Azar and Nazali.  All were imprisoned.  Nahid invites them to her home and follows the horrors of their captivity- harsh conditions, shootings, beatings, rape and torture. On the outside they are beautiful and witty, belying the pain in their stories. Stories that provoke questions about today’s Arab spring.  58 Minutes