In 1953, the democratically elected government of Iran was being overthrown thanks to a CIA-backed coup d’état with the aid of an oil-greedy Great Britain. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed, and numerous lives were lost, not counting many freedoms. The aftermath? Turn on CNN.

Situated in that pivotal year, photographer Shirin Neshat’s startling feature debut, Women Without Men, is meant as a tribute to those Iranis who fought, those who were crushed, and those who died thanks to foreign imperialist interference.

Yet this powerful feminist fable -- with its good dose of magical realism, its slight bow to Buñuel, and its fatalistic attitude to the craven paternalism that underlies the cradle-to-grave existence of women in many Muslim countries -- really is a poignant cry to overthrow the male dominance of the “fairer sex” that is carried out, often with fundamentalist glee and swagger, thanks to a patriarchal misreading of the Qur’an.

The screenplay, which was inspired by Shahmush Parsipur’s novel, clearly sets forth that the lives of women were pretty rotten before the Shah’s reign became a reality. Just ask the film’s heroines. (Ironically, it was under the Shah that women gained the right to vote and were admitted into universities.)

Well, as the coup is taking place, Zarin (Orsi Toth), a prostitute, who’s had a taxing afternoon on her back, hallucinates that the faces of her johns have become blank gobs of skin. Distraught, she runs to a bathhouse and nearly scrubs her own flesh away.

Not far away, there’s Munis (Shabnam Tolouei), who’s 30 and unwed. Glued to the radio in the house she shares with her brother, she’s a nationalist who wants to become politically involved in Iran’s daily affairs, but her self-centered sibling insists Munis stay at home and await a suitor he’s invited over. Leave the house, and “I’ll break your legs,” he threatens. “You’ll never be decent,” he adds after she insists she never wants to marry.

Meanwhile, the more insular Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni) is mooning over Munis’s brother, whose affections lie elsewhere. Distressed to begin with, she becomes even more so after being raped by two men who see her innocently passing by a coffee shop they were drinking in and pursue her.

Finally, there’s Fakhri (Arita Shahizad), a middle-aged, upper-class wife unhappily wed to a powerful military backer of the Shah. Her misery worsens when an old lover returns from America to reignite all her dreams of being a poet and a singer, talents she long ago buried. Noticing Fakhri’s sudden odd behavior, her spouse advises, “A woman in menopause shouldn’t be flirting any more.”

Well, these four culturally imprisoned ladies’ lives soon intersect, and two die, one is reborn, and a magical garden with unusual growing habits soothes their spirits and gives them hope for a time.

Clearly, the world of Women without Men is a barren one pregnant with possibilities.

Not barren is the New Directors New Films festival, which is screening Women Without Men. Thanks to the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, this annual event has been a career-booster for many of the world’s now top directors. This year the curators have selected two dozen films from 19 countries, and if the fest’s past record is any indicator, you’ll have to look no further for challenging, humane, and often astonishing cinematic treats. - Brandon Judell

Mr. Judell is featured in Rosa von Praunheim's forthcoming documentary New York Memories. In the spring, he'll be teaching "The Image of the Jew in Post-World War II European Cinema" and "Gay and Lesbian Literature" at The City College of New York. He has written on film for The Village Voice, indieWire, Detour, and The Advocate, and is anthologized in Cynthia Fuchs's Spike Lee Interviews (University Press of Mississippi).