Azam Jangravi poses during an interview with Reuters, at the unknown location, February 7, 2019.

Azam Jangravi’s heart was pounding when she climbed atop an electricity transformer box on Tehran’s busy Revolution Street a year ago. She raised her headscarf in the air and waved it above her head.

Forty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is little excitement left from those times; even pro-reform forces are exhausted, except for the women among them.

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Antoin Sevruguin, the father of Iranian society photography, captured portraits of Iranian women in the early 20th century, from well-known ladies at the court to women from various tribes around the country.

Afghan musician Soraya Hosseini, a member of the Arikayn rock band

The band gathers in a small carpentry shop on the outskirts of Iran’s capital, with sawdust still in the air but the buzzing of the jigsaws now exchanged for the soft feedback of an amplifier.

Sadaf Foroughiʹs debut feature film, AVA, examines the complexities of the relationship between a mother and a teenage daughter living in present day Tehran. The movie is both a fascinating character study and an examination of the damage caused by the rules governing women’s behaviour in Iranian society.