It tells the story of two teen girls, best friends who fall in love. Simple enough, but the girls live in Iran, and the subject of homosexuality, is, as we all know, taboo.

Part of what makes the film so interesting is the lengths to which the director, Maryam Keshavarz, went in making it. An article on indiewire.com tells of Keshavarz having to cut off contact with family members in Iran to protect them after the government banned the film, sight unseen. Circumstance was filmed in Lebanon, rather than Tehran, where it is set, to protect the film crew.

Keshavarz, who grew up going back and forth between Iran and the US, was inspired to make the film after seeing Iranian youth escape government tyranny by embracing the underground scene. In her words, these youth had “so few choices, and if you really want to be true to who you are, you have to fight for it.”

Keshavarz seems wary of labelling the film in any way.

She shies away from saying it's political, although by addressing the subject of homosexuality in Iran, it is. She is also reluctant to call it a lesbian film. On one hand, that is not surprising because most lesbian films are so badly acted, but it is about two women falling in love — and in my eyes that is pretty much a lesbian film.

It takes a gutsy director to make a film about women taking a leap into the unknown in a country that is not willing to accept any deviation from a tightly controlled, highly religious society.

Circumstance will hit Canadian screens in October.