When her son was just two months old, Roja Pakari fell ill. After several medical tests, she was eventually diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer. Extended stays in hospital for treatment meant she slowly became a stranger to her little boy, who thought the hospital was her home.

Co-directed with fellow Danish filmmaker Emilie Adelina Monies, “The Son and the Moon” is Pakari’s love letter to her son, which she will be premiering at Cph:dox, one of Europe’s leading documentary film festivals, on March 18. Variety is debuting the poster below.

Mixing her own footage with archives of her native Iran shot with a camcorder, the film chronicles the six years since the birth of her son and the diagnosis of her illness: how she survived coma, her desire – in her own words – “not only to survive but to live” despite cancer, and how she reclaimed her place as...