The Mirror and the Map traces the extraordinary journey of Maryam Mirzakhani — from a young girl sketching patterns on a fogged mirror. a visionary mathematician mapping the infinite curves of the universe. A reflection of genius and resilience, MARYAM tells the story of how one woman turned imagination into geometry,
From Tehran to the rarefied halls of Harvard and Stanford, MARYAM follows the extraordinary rise of Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the Fields Medal — mathematics’ highest honor.
Maryam grows up in post-revolutionary Iran, coming of age in a society reshaped by upheaval and constraint. At the Farzanegan School for gifted girls, she discovers mathematics — not merely as a subject, but as a way of seeing the world. At the International Mathematical Olympiad, one of the few girls competing, she stuns the global community with back-to-back gold medals. Her success is later marked by loss when classmates are killed in a devastating bus accident, an event that leaves a lasting imprint on her sense of purpose.
In America, Maryam enters a new intellectual arena. At Harvard, under the guidance of Curtis McMullen — brilliant, exacting, and uncompromising — she is pushed toward problems that challenge even the most accomplished minds. McMullen recognizes her originality and encourages her to pursue questions others avoid. Where many see dense walls of symbols, Maryam sees form and motion: curved surfaces, hidden symmetries, entire mathematical worlds unfolding. Her way of thinking sets her apart.
During this period, she meets Jan Vondrák, a Czech mathematician. What begins as a meeting of minds grows into a partnership that grounds her life beyond the abstract With the birth of their daughter.
At the height of her creative powers, Maryam contributes to a major breakthrough in geometry — work that will become known as the “magic wand theorem,” developed with Alex Eskin and Amir Mohammadi. Soon after, she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment takes a profound toll, even as her earlier achievements continue to reverberate through the mathematical world.
It is during this period that Maryam learns she has been awarded the Fields Medal, becoming the first woman in history to receive the honor — a recognition of work already accomplished, and a legacy secured.
MARYAM is a human epic: a story of intellect and imagination, love and family, perseverance and grace — and a woman whose vision reshaped how we understand the infinite.
Impact
Maryam will be told with the intimacy of a character-driven drama and the sweep of a global journey. Like Lion, it moves from the intensity of childhood in Tehran to adulthood in the West. Like The Theory of Everything, it balances romance and intellectual discovery with the devastating reality of illness. And in the spirit of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, it explores creativity itself — how Maryam envisioned mathematics not as numbers but as landscapes of imagination.
Maryam Mirzakhani’s life has a cinematic arc: from Post-revolutionary Tehran to the corridors of Harvard and Stanford, where she broke through barriers that had excluded women from mathematics’ highest honors. Nearly a decade after The Man Who Knew Infinity brought Ramanujan’s story to audiences worldwide, Maryam offers the opportunity to inspire a new generation — especially young women in a field still dominated by men.
By producing this film through Infinity Arts, we will ensure an uncompromising commitment to authenticity — the very heart of our mission. More than a story about mathematics, Maryam is about resilience, love and the human cost of greatness. Her discoveries inspired awe among mathematicians, while her life story — intimate, tragic and profound — will move audiences everywhere.