The success of Nargess earned Bani-Etemad the freedom to make more personal projects, such as this autobiographically inspired story of a divorced woman struggling to raise her teenaged son while simultaneously trying to finish a documentary about motherhood and maintaining a relationship with her lover.  Combining interviews with a range of women captured by Bani-Etamad’s protagonist and alter ego, The May Lady offers both a poetic tribute to filmmaking and motherhood and a clear-eyed recognition of the stark difficulties faced by working women in contemporary Iran.