IranianAmerican

When Maryam Keshavarz was a young girl growing up in New York City in the 1980s, she would spend her summer holidays travelling to Iran, from where her parents had migrated. As well as her luggage, she would fly with small plastic bags taped to her body containing objects she would smuggle into and out of Iran.The most common thing Keshavarz was asked to bring from the US was cassette tapes featuring American pop. “I would stick them in my underwear,” she says over video call from Los Angeles, “because it was an Islamic…

Energetic, funny and unashamedly sentimental, this is a warm-hearted comedy written and directed by Iranian-American film-maker Maryam Keshavarz, even if her semi-autobiographical story about life in a traditional Iranian family in New Jersey feels more than a little familiar from past movies about second-generation growing pains. But Keshavarz cranks up the charm, and the feelgood factor makes it an easy watch – despite some of the gags feeling more suited to a TV sitcom.New York in the 00s; Leila (Layla Mohammadi) is a…