When her mother discovered the secret of the bag, a long and tiring battle in defence of freedom began. It was 1967. Nasrin Parvaz* won the battle against her mother. She would never have imagined that, twelve years later, that victory would be questioned, not by her religious and conservative family but by the Islamic regime which came to power in 1979. All Iranian women had to take the veil out of their bags and re-arrange it around their head.

Teheran 2007. A jaw made of cement and bricks which crushes fifteen million inhabitants, a maze of viaducts crossed by seven million cars: it is an 18-kilometer road which crosses the city from south to north.