Born Under Libra

A young Iranian couple find it all but impossible to reconcile their love with the strict moral and religious strictures that govern their lives in this controversial drama. Mahtab (Mitra Hajjar) is the daughter of Peyman (Mahmoud Azizi), a wealthy man with ties to political power and firmly conservative religious beliefs. Mahtab is a student at a university in Tehran, where she has fallen in love with one of her classmates, Daniel (Mahammad Reza Foroutan). Mahtab and Daniel want to get married, but they must first obtain permission from Peyman, and local custom dictates that until they are officially engaged, they are not to be seen in public together, and Peyman isn't so certain he approves of his daughter's lifestyle and manner of dress -- modest by the standards of the West, but not in keeping with Peyman's fundamentalist beliefs. Mahtab's academic future is in doubt after a group of activist students launch a campaign to eliminate women from the student body, and her feelings about this issue are further inflamed by Daniel's association with several of the movement's leaders. Daniel begins to have second thoughts about his ties to the leaders of the protest, and when a love letter he wrote to Mahtab is discovered, he finds himself questioned on all sides and flees to the rural home of his parents. Mahtab, who still loves Daniel, follows him there, and they make plans to run away together -- a decision that proves to be more dangerous than they imagined. Motevalede Mahe Mehr was written and directed by Ahmad Reza Darvish, who fell victim to a group of religious extremists angered by the film's portrayals of opponents to Iranian reform; Darvish was kidnapped, and eventually found in a remote desert, where his captors had left him.