I never ran away from home impulsively, nor have I ever been on a trip with friends. I craved it many times, but probably wasn’t as brave as Hana. I wrote those scenes, sending Hana on a trip on my behalf, doing the things I desperately wished to do back then.

The result is a different kind of documentary storytelling that is utterly participatory and unexpected, stretching beyond tropes and conventions; forgoing observation in favor of play and experimentation. And, as the filmmakers point out, it means we really get to see these characters for who they are. “There are many documentaries that use the characters to say something about the world,” Van Hemelryck says, painting a hypothetical picture: “a documentary about a war in this or that country; they follow a character, and somehow we don't feel like we really met the character. We don’t know much about them, but following them, we understand a reflection about the war or a specific theme. “Here we wanted to make the contrary, we wanted to really get to know them,” he explains. “In the beginning, it’s just a game—it’s imagination. But more and more, you get into the feeling that you’re connected to the girls, and you don’t care what’s true, what’s not true, what happened to Alis, what’s made up. You connect with the girls very emotionally.

Bani-Etemad’s fourth narrative feature, Nargess brought her renown with its enthralling story of a young working-class woman who captivates a lonely thief. Estranged from his family, the criminal turns to his accomplice and sometime lover for her assistance in securing Nargess’ hand in marriage. The older woman agrees, on the condition that he remain her partner in crime and that they rekindle their relationship. Bani-Etemad uses the fractured love triangle as a poetic compass to chart the map of a nation torn between traditional social and gender roles and driven by a raw cupidity for wealth at any cost.