3 Women is the second feature film of Manijeh Hekmat, who received international acclaim for Women’s Prison (2002). The title credits are inscribed on a rug with a beautiful pattern, which will function as a significant symbol. Minoo, a weaver and an expert rug-maker, stops by a rug shop on her way to the hospital with her elderly mother who’s suffering from dementia, to take a rug in the shop back to the museum. However, on a bus, she loses the rug again, and realizes that her mother is also missing. Meanwhile, Minoo’s daughter, Pegah wanders about the Iranian countryside taking photos and meet Babak, who’s on an excavation. Not interested in schoolwork and following Babak on a search for existential truth, Pegah becomes interested in the excavation site and photographs it. All of a sudden, Minoo has lost her mother, daughter, and rug and she struggles to get all of them back. Her mother roams about with the rug and her daughter encounters a bleeding woman on the site. Will the three women reunite? The film allows the audience to consider why three women from different generations scatter and wander about. The rug symbolizes the burden of tradition taken on by the women. It is inherited from the maternal line: Minoo’s mother weaves, Minoo preserves and her daughter records. The film excellently figures the reality and conflict of three women from different generations. Minoo, a superwoman exhausted by the huge burden of maintaing both family and career, is played by Niki Karimi, a well known Iranian actress. (KIM Sunah)