This unique documentary interweaves the story of the filmmaker—who grew up in Persia, today known as Iran—with the history of the country from the 1930s onward to the Islamic Revolution. Katia’s father was a Danish engineer and her mother a Polish survivor of one of Stalin’s gulags. The couple met in Tehran in 1942.

Katia recalls the Tehran of her youth and adolescence as “the happiest place under the sun.” But when the Shah was deposed in 1979, life changed for foreigners. Oil politics began to tear the world asunder and the Islamic Revolution erupted. Katia’s memories are brought to life with archival footage and photographs of the revolution.

After spending her adult years in Denmark, the filmmaker feels compelled to revisit her birth place. She now dons the mandatory chador and walks the familiar streets speaking to anyone who will speak to her. She observes the unfamiliar powerlessness of women, the tyranny of religion, and the economic condition of the people. Through her eyes, viewers gain a better understanding of this closed and inaccessible country.

Through archival footage—including newsreel shots of Iranian political upheavals over the past half-century and home movies from the family's once-happy days in Iran—coupled with beautifully photographed present-day scenes. My Iranian Paradise underscores the fact that life has indeed become "quite different"—especially for women. . . This is an interesting portrait of the darker side of Iran's shift to a theocracy. Recommended."
‒Video Librarian