Though the film could be distributed legally in Iran since the country has no official copyright relations with the United States, Salinger had his lawyers block a planned screening of the film at Lincoln Center in 1998. Mehrjui called Salinger’s action “bewildering,” explaining that he saw his film as “a kind of cultural exchange.”His follow-up film, 1997’s Leila, is a melodrama about an urban, upper-middle-class couple who learn that the wife is unable to bear children.
