Superb cinema verité style. It deftly portrays a spirit of hopefulness.  - Variety

The fringes of Iranian society can be a lonely place, especially if you are a teenage girl with few resources to fall back on.  The Glass House follows four girls striving to pull themselves out of the margins by attending a one-of-kind rehabilitation center in uptown Tehran.  Forget about the Iran that you’ve seen before.  With a virtually invisible camera, the girls of The Glass House take us on a never-before-seen tour of the underclass of Iran with their brave and defiant stories: Samira struggles to overcome forced drug addiction; Mitra harnesses abandonment into her creative writing; Sussan teeters on a dangerous ledge after years of sexual abuse; and Nazila burgeons out of her hatred with her blazing rap music. This groundbreaking documentary reflects a side of Iran few have access to or paid attention to: a society lost to its traditions with nothing meaningful to replace them and a group of courageous women working to instill a sense of empowerment and hope into the minds and lives of otherwise discarded teenage girls.

Check out some of the music of The Glass House:

THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS DONORS

Shoja Adel, Leila Adle, Sanaz Afsar, Hossein Afshar, Mohammad Ala, Azadeh Amani-Taleshi, Paul Amery, Fati Armandeh, Behnam Attai, Avisheh Avini, Shiva Bahmani, Shahin Bekhradnia, Farid Bichareh, Taraneh Borbor, Debbi Bossi, Robert Dawson, Anthony Donovan, Lance Dryden, Charlotte Edelman, Ardavan Farmanfarmaian, Cathia Geller, Jean Gilpin, Afsaneh Halati, Dory Halati, Gisue Hariri, Mojgan Hariri, Bahaneh Heydarzadeh, Mark Hojreh, Iranian Youth Development Association, Pourang Jahanshahi, Kowsar Jamshidi, Reza Khalili, James Longley, Laili Sadr Mahallati, Omid Mehraii, Nahid Mozaffari, Koushna Navabi, Violet Pakzad, Yasmin Pakzad, Elena Pascoli, Christiana Perschon, Padideh Raphael, Sahrzad Rezai, Sep Riahi, Babak Sadeghi, Sassan Safay, Kiu Samii, Ali Sattaripour, Banafsheh Sayyad, Souha X Shayota, Maryam Shirinloo, Azita Tajaddini, Mahasti Ziai, and Leila Zubi

Directed, Shot & Edited by
Hamid Rahmanian
Written & Produced by Melissa Hibbard
Original Score by David Bergeaud

Documentary. 92 minutes, ©2008
Original format – DV
Screening format - HD CAM, Digibeta and DVD (NTSC or PAL)

Study Topics

Iran
Islamic World Studies
Women's Studies
Human Rights
Film Studies
Anthropology

Awards & Festivals

OSCE Human Rights Award
Best Feature Doc - Dallas Video Fest
Sundance Film Festival
IDFA
Festival de Rio
Stranger than Fiction, NYC
BAMCinemaFest
Sao Paulo International Film Festival
Tricontental Film Festival, Opening Night

Credits

Sound Editing & Rerecording by Christopher Harvengt & Paul Longstaffe
Post Production Services by Level 3 Post
Digital Effects by FlickerLab, Nikolay Nachev
Legal Services provided by Zubi Rosner
World Wide Sales: Film Sales Corp