Vis a Vis: Beyond the Veil

“Vis a Vis: Beyond the Veil” presents an intense and moving series of conversations between Deborah Whitley in Washington, DC, and Sima Daad in Teheran, Iran. The two high school English teachers meet face-to-face through a digital video link, and proceed cautiously and politely at first. They eventually find common ground in their devotion to their families and abiding love of literature. In this first public dialogue between countries at odds for nearly 20 years, Deborah and Sima view each other on TV monitors in their homes, schools and neighborhood restaurants, and exchange video diaries about each other´s lives, families, professions, cultures. As their conversation moves forward over five days, they confront profound differences over America´s past military presence in the Persian Gulf, why Iranian women must wear veils, and the issue of artistic freedom – particularly as it relates to Salmon Rushdie and the death sentence imposed by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Along the way there are inevitable arguments, misunderstandings, exchanges of laughter and often surprising discoveries of similarities between people from two very different cultures.