I Look Like My Mother (WT)

Logline

In search of the creation of an autonomous body, filmmaker Amina Maher retraces the trauma buried within her relationship with her family - notably with her filmmaker mother Mania Akbari, as Amina breaks her silence about who she is: A trans queer woman who was filmed as a little boy named Amin in Abbas Kiarostami´s Ten without her knowledge and consent, the exact time when a family member began to abuse her over four years sexually. Despite an oppressive perverse family, an abusive mother, and a patriarchal society that tries to mask and shut her down - in the process of honest self-realization and transitioning - Maher openly explores gender, sexuality, love, sex, and abuse, and searches for ways of coping to reclaim her body and her story. Her political body comes to occupy and collect multiple possible ‘voices’ – becoming ‘speaker, seer, and seen,’ understanding personal histories to be implicated in larger social formations and historical processes.