Golestan, de Rozentuin

25 years ago, after the installation of Khomeini, the Iranian Hassan left his native country. As he can still not muster the courage to go back, he sends director Sabine König to Iran. He put some drawings and short texts in a small book, meant for important people from his childhood, like his best friend, the poet Jafar. Golestan describes how König looks for these people, finds them and asks for their interpretations of the drawings. The reactions vary from sincere joy and melancholy ('He always asked me to recite the same poem') to incomprehension about the mission ('What are his memories to these people?') and covert reproaches about his flight ('If I have to suffer, I prefer to do it over here'). König leaves room for coincidental meetings and unanticipated stories, like the almost casually told and therefore all the more poignant story by Jafar's mother about her perished son. Images of an old Dodge laden with people are the thread through the film, which subtly unveils the wounds of an afflicted nation.