"From Afar" traces the malaise of a young artist and intellectual in three episodes: Book Burning, Breathing and Dawn. The Young protagonist lives in contemporary Tehran and he appears as a film student, an asthmatic businessman and a successful architect. In each story, he journeys toward a spiritual insight or emotion.
Death surrounds Bahman, a director who hasn't made a film in 24 years (he can't get past the censors). He's working on a documentary, for Japanese TV, on Iranian burial practices. On the anniversary of his wife's death, a hitchhiker tells him a story of spousal abuse and infant mortality, he discovers that someone has been buried in his plot next to his wife, and he needs the help of his attorney, a well-connected fixer. He dreams of death, even as he investigates it for his film. His niece's husband, a well-known writer, fails to return home; he searches hospitals for an unclaimed body. His heart disease is flaring up. Is he prepared for death? Is that all that's left?
Mashallah Iranmanesh is coming to Tehran from his city Kerman to sell apartment no. 13 which he has inherited. With its money he wants to marry the girl he is in love with and also buy a work shop so he can work in it. But because of the bad neighbors and their problems things are not going as he desires to.
Haji is severely traumatized by the war with Iraq. Back from the front, he's unable to adapt to civilian life. Despite family opposition, his fiancée stands by him as together they challenge both the authority of family and state to lead their own lives.
Valeh, a member of a leftist organization, is arrested by the SAVAK and sentenced to death. In prison, he reconsiders his relationships with members of his political cell, and begins to doubt the validity of the ideas for which he is condemned. At the same time, his comrades pressure him to make a sacrifice for their cause, and his beloved wife experiences personal problems and economic hardships.
The silence of this sleepy little town is soon disturbed when the residents begin to receive threatening phone calls. No one knows who is making them. The police fail to find any evidence leading to the anonymous offender. It seems the further they investigate, the less they know. Is it possible that the whole town is in danger? An intense and captivating horror that is filled with suspense.