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In Bucharest in the late 1970s, friends Maria and Zahra study together at the Medical University. When the Iranian revolution overthrows the Shah in 1979, Zahra, an Iranian, drops out of her studies and returns to Tehran full of revolutionary ambitions. Over the years, an exchange of letters unfolds between the two, recounting women's struggles, promising upheavals and repressive regimes in both countries. The unspoken words between the lines of letters tell of a closeness and tenderness that goes beyond friendship.
Told visually exclusively through impressive archival footage from Romania and Iran, author Lavinia Braniste and filmmaker Vlad Petri weave together rarely seen contemporary documents into a fictional correspondence. "You need imagination in order to imagine a future that does not exist" is quoted at the beginning of the film Azar Nafisi. With BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS, Petri imagines a past in order to let us continue to dream a future in the present.