Without My Daughter

Without My Daughter (2002, Finland) is a 90-minute documentary directed by Kari Tervo and Alexis Kouros.[1]

In 1987, a book titled Not Without My Daughter was published, based on the story of an American woman, Betty Mahmoody. According to the book, Mahmoody and her daughter Mahtob Mahmoody were taken by her Iranian husband, Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, for a "two-week holiday" to Iran, and he kept them there against their will. She managed to escape 18 months later, taking their 5-year-old daughter with her to Turkey and back to the United States. In 1991, a movie titled Not Without My Daughter starring Sally Field was released, based on the events described in her book.

This documentary tells Sayyed Mahmoody's side of that story. It goes beyond the personal and emotional desires of a father seeking to meet his daughter, and explores the wider political and global contexts underlying the case of the Mahmoody family.