My Daughter's Hair (2025)
There is a particular kind of Iranian film that takes something tiny, a debt, a misunderstanding, a single object, and stacks an almost unbearable amount of pressure on top of it. My Daughter's Hair, the first feature from director Hesam Farahmand, belongs firmly to that tradition, and it had its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival 2026.
The object this time is a laptop. A young woman needs to replace a stolen one to hold on to her job, her family cannot afford it, and from that small, painfully ordinary problem Farahmand builds a story that just keeps tightening. It is the sort of premise that sounds like nothing on paper and grips like a vice on screen.
I've watched a fair few Iranian films lately, and they're consistently strong. Masterpieces like A Separation and The Salesman have set the bar incredibly high for the region's cinema. So, when I sat down to watch Hesam Farahmand's 2025 drama My Daughter's Hair as part of the Raindance Film Festival 2026, I had a few expectations, but I was completely blown away by the sheer ingenuity of the plot.
On paper, the premise is deceptively simple: it's about a low-income family just trying to make ends meet, with a laptop serving as the central MacGuffin. But it's the way this seemingly straightforward setup develops, layering twist after brilliant twist, that makes it such an utterly captivating watch.
What makes Farahmand's direction so special here is how he takes this mundane, everyday struggle and turns it into a gripping, edge-of-your-seat narrative. You think you know exactly where the story is going, and then the script pulls the rug out from under you in the most organic, believable way possible. It's a masterclass in tension-building, proving you don't need massive budgets or explosive set pieces to keep an audience completely hooked. The story just keeps tightening the screws, making you deeply invested in the fate of this family and the lengths they will go to for each other.
The acting throughout is incredibly strong, grounding the high-stakes emotional drama in a very real, lived-in authenticity. Shahad Hosseini, who plays the father Tohid, does a brilliant job for the vast majority of the runtime, carrying the weight of his family's struggles on his shoulders with quiet dignity. If I have one minor gripe, it's that I'd have expected his performance to be just a fraction more shattered or explosive in the immediate aftermath of a particularly tragic moment late in the film. It's a tiny misstep in an otherwise stellar ensemble, but it didn't detract much from the overall emotional impact of the scene.
Overall, My Daughter's Hair is an incredibly entertaining watch and easily one of the best movies I've seen this year. It takes the rich, empathetic tradition of Iranian cinema and injects it with a twisty, unpredictable narrative engine that keeps you guessing until the very last frame. Hesam Farahmand has crafted a beautiful, tense, and deeply moving film that absolutely deserves to be seen.
Iranian cinema rarely lets me down, but this one still caught me off guard, and it is the kind of find that makes a festival pass worth its weight. If My Daughter's Hair turns up anywhere near you, at a festival, on a streaming service, anywhere at all, do not hesitate. Hesam Farahmand is a name I will be following closely from here.
Reviewed from a Raindance Film Festival 2026 press screener.
Related on Movies With Macca
More from Raindance Film Festival: 1001 Frames (2025), Summer School, 2001 (2025), Dead Dogs Don't Bite (2026), Nameless (2026), Silent Rebellion (2025)
More from the 2020s: Look Back (2024), The Whale (2022), All That's Left of You (2025)
