My Stolen Planet

MY STOLEN PLANET is a diary-style documentary by Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi, born during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. From a young age, she becomes aware of living a divided existence: one self inside the home, another outside under the strict religious regime. There is a world where dancing is possible and the hijab can come off, and another where both are forbidden. Since childhood, she has inhabited these two “planets.”

Through personal footage and voice-over, Sharifi reflects on this split life. At the same time, she collects and preserves anonymous Super 8 and 8mm home movies she has acquired in Iran. The private lives of strangers gradually enter her narrative, merging with her own memories. Together, these fragments form an intimate counter-history of Iran—one built from everyday gestures, fleeting joys, and quiet resistance.

Her connection with Leyla, an Iranian professor who left the country during the revolution, gives a name and story to one of the faces in the archive. Her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s intensifies her urgency to safeguard memory. When the Women, Life, Freedom uprising erupts in the fall of 2022, it marks a profound turning point—both in her personal journey and in the collective history of Iran. This is a homemade history, assembled against erasure.