by
Julia Elihu
Film Specs
Runtime: 14 minutes
Year of Completion: 2023
Country/Countries of Production: USA
Language(s): Persian
About
At the height of the Iran-Iraq War, Caroline takes a final car ride with her father to the Iranian countryside.
Julia Elihu
DIRECTOR & EDITOR
Julia is an Iranian-American writer/director and sometimes producer whose work spans across the narrative and documentary landscape. Through film, she aims to shed light on underrepresented stories which capture life’s candid beauty.
At age 19, her short film “Yasamin”, based on her mother’s story of immigration, was a Grand Jury Prize Nominee at the 2018 AFI Film Festival. In 2022, she associate produced the short documentary
“Long Line of Ladies” which world premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, won the grand jury prize at SXSW, and was picked up by The New York Times Op-Docs. In 2021, she produced the short documentary “Team Meryland” which was acquired by The New Yorker and PBS' POV Shorts Program.
Julia's short narrative film, “Winter of ‘79”, had its World Premiere at the prestigious Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, and had its online debut on Omeleto. Her latest short, “In the Garden of Tulips”, had its world premiere at the Aspen Shortsfest, where it won the “Youth Jury Award.” The film also took home the Oscar®-qualifying award for “Best Live Action Short Film” at the St. Louis International Film Festival and has made its online debut as a Vimeo Staff Pick. In the future, Julia hopes to tell more stories that remind us to cherish the small wonders of life that emerge even in the face of hardship.
Ava Lalezarzadeh
WRITER & LEAD ACTRESS
Ava Lalezarzadeh is an actor and writer in the original cast of the 5 time Tony Nominated and Pulitzer Prize winning play ENGLISH by Sanaz Toossi (Roundabout Theater Co.). Her performance earned her a Clive Barnes Award. She reprises her role of Goli which she originated in the Off-Broadway production of English (Atlantic Theater Co. & Roundabout Theater Co.; Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play) in which she won an Obie Award Special Citation. Other select credits: Series regular on BEFORE (AppleTV+) oppositie Billy Crystal. Recurring Guest star on Season 4 of THE MORNING SHOW (AppleTV+) oppositie Jennifer Aniston. Big Mouth (Netflix). New Amsterdam (NBC). Ava’s script for IN THE GARDEN OF TULIPS won the screenwriting competition at HollyShorts Film Festival 2022. Feature adaptation in development.
Artist Reflection
by Ava Lalezarzadeh
What inspired this film?
Our film follows 16-year-old Caroline on the final car ride with her father through Birjand, the countryside of Iran, at the height of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. I play my mother Caroline. I wrote this story inspired by my mother’s journey of forced migration when she was a teenager.
My grandparents faced an impossible choice: keep their teenage daughter in a country where the war was escalating and opportunities for higher education as a Jewish woman in post-revolutionary Iran were rapidly diminishing, or send her alone across the Iranian border on a dangerous and uncertain journey in search of a better future.They chose the latter.
My mom calls this final car ride one of the most pivotal moments of her life— when she was thrust into adulthood in a singular moment. I wanted our film to be a quiet examination of how this father-daughter duo hold each other up in between moments of laughter and sorrow as they fight for togetherness while moving inexorably toward separation.
As a consequence, Julia, Aaron, and I made a film that shows the real life impact of war and persecution. What moves me most is the resilience people find at life's pivotal crossroads—the capacity to endure loss, embrace uncertainty, and move forward despite (or perhaps because of) it.
What was the most challenging thing about making this film?
Our producer, Aaron Lemle, would tell you it’d be filming a period piece road movie! We had to make sure that the location we were filming on in present day Agua Dulce, California was an accurate depiction of 1988 South Khorasan landscape. There were also technical challenges with filming in the confines of a moving car.
That said, the car and the intimacy it provided was as emotionally essential as it was logistically necessary for a road movie about separation. Growing up hearing my family's stories, I was struck by how many Iranians felt they lived two lives. There was the life inside the home—or in private spaces—where people could express themselves freely, and then there was the version of themselves they presented in public. In our film, the car becomes an extension of that private world. It's the one place where Caroline and Sharif can momentarily forget the outside pressures. That's why the interruptions from the outside world feel so significant—they remind us how fragile that sense of freedom can be.
What do you hope audiences carry with them after watching?
You know, when I went into writing this film, in all truth, I wasn't thinking about the audience. I was writing a reflection on my mom’s experience and my north star was to stay as truthful to her internal experience as I could.
Our festival run taught us that audiences of all backgrounds could resonate. I was so moved by their tenderness and open hearts. Naturally, our film humanizes the refugee and immigrant experience as we centered the story around a father and daughter. Our audiences recognized that refugees and migrants are often ordinary families confronted with circumstances no one would willingly choose.
From the Iranian/Iranian-Jewish diaspora and immigrant community at large, they’ve often shared the sentiments that watching their tribulations and sacrifices reflected back to them was cathartic and validating. In our family and friends screening, the Q&A turned into this 100+ share session where people were volunteering their own stories of migration and the dual sense of excitement yet fear that came with it. That was really meaningful to us.
The circumstances may be specific to Iran 1988, but the emotional pull isn't. You don't have to go through a revolution to understand the pain of saying goodbye to someone you love, the grief of leaving home, or growing up too fast.
What’s next for you?
I am developing the feature adaptation script of Tulips. How many years now and counting, ha ha. As an actor, I have two features and an animated series that are in post production and I start rehearsals for a play next month! I am excited for it all.