The Iranian revolution of 1979 saw the US-backed rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi collapse almost overnight, to be replaced with an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The impact of the regime change was felt immediately by the filmmaking community, with the obliteration of filmfarsi, the country’s cheap, commercial and heavily-Westernized industry. Nevertheless, Iranian cinema has endured, making international celebrities of directors such as Abbas Kierostami, Mohsen Makmalbaf, Jafar Panahi – winner of last year’s Palme d’Or – and Asghar Farhadi, who returns to Cannes this year with his second French-language Competition entry Parallel Tales.
With the promise of a ceasefire in the Middle East still far from certain, Deadline asked four Iranian directors to reflect on the situation in their homeland.
THE PAST
FATEME AHMAD
“There is a misconception about Iranian cinema because of the distorted image of Iran in the media,” says Fateme Ahmadi, an Iranian director based in London. “People think we ride camels. They think we all live in villages. But Iran is one of the very few countries in the world where there is no illiteracy. The rate of illiteracy is near zero; 67% of students in higher education are women. In Iran, women vote, women drive, women are highly educated. And then 25% of filmmakers in Iran are women. In America, it’s 4%. Women filmmakers are really celebrated and cherished in Iran.”
From Shiraz in South Iran, Ahmadi is a case in point, having studied filmmaking at the Tehran University of Art as well as doing a BA in Persian literature, and an MA in linguistics. Now putting the finishing touches to her debut feature Daughter of Eden, starring Hiam Abbass, Ahmadi would be the first to admit that the Islamic Republic of Iran may be many things – repressive and reactionary, to put it mildly – but, as the Trump administration continues to find out, it is anything but stupid.
On the contrary, Iran is a nation of cineastes. The director says she grew up with VHS copies of filmfarsi. “There was also a lot of arthouse cinema, because Islamic Republic didn’t find it a threat,” she says. “You don’t need to censor Tarkovsky or Bergman much. Soviet cinema was also a source of inspiration to all of us when I was growing up. I watched Mirror by Tarkovsky when I was 12. I didn’t understand anything!” She laughs. “Like Krzysztof Kieślowski, the Polish filmmaker, he is still the god of cinema to most Iranians that I know.”
The proximity of India meant that early Bollywood (“before it became too big”) was an influence on Iranian cinema back in the day. But an arguably bigger influence was the cinematic revolution that was happening in post-war Paris. “Because most of the students who went to Europe to get educated would go to France, the New Wave of French cinema really influenced Iranian filmmakers in the ’50s and in the ’60s. Around the same time that you had French New Wave, you had Iranian New Wave — directors like Ebrahim Golestan, Fereydoun Jeyrani, Bahrām Beyzai, Nasser Taghvai… there are around 10 people who are the pioneers of Iranian New Wave.”
This created a schism; like any “free” country, Iran has always had an import/export system; though it is known for its heavy hand with dissidents, there has always been a commercial “official” cinema. “I would say it’s still the same pretty much,” Ahmadi says. “We have films that are made through official channels, and we have films that are made quietly without any permission and under tough conditions. And then we have films that are made out of Iran in exile or diaspora. They might not necessarily be in Persian, but you can see the influence of Iranian cinema in them.”
THE PRESENT
SARA KHAKI and MOHAMMADREZA EYNI
“Cinema is the only way for people to talk about the people of Iran,” says director, producer, and cinematographer Mohammadreza Eyni. “The ordinary people of Iran,” he stresses. “And this is the strength of Iranian cinema. It’s not just about the stories or the poetry of the films, it’s also an act of resistance in advocating for a culture, a very rich culture.” A case in point is Cutting Through Rocks, the film Eyni co-directed with Sara Khaki that premiered at Sundance last year and went all the way to the Oscars.
“I was born and raised in Iran,” says Khaki, “but I left at a young age.” Eyni, however, stayed. “I studied cinema at the Tehran University of Fine Arts, where Asghar Farhadi also studied,” he says. “I never wanted to leave. I wanted to be in Iran and work on films there, especially films about my own community.”
Eyni, then was the first person Khaki called when she encountered the story of Sara Shahverdi, a rural midwife who became the first woman to be elected to council in her village.
Says Khaki, “When I was growing up in Tehran I witnessed so many incredible women like Sara who were going about their lives but paving the way for the next generation of women and girls in their communities. And then when I left Iran, my heart was still there. I’m very much an Iranian, even though I’ve been away for over 20 years. I really had a deep desire to go back to my home country, and then I came across this tenacious individual, a midwife who had delivered 400 kids. I was intrigued, so I got a hold of her, and when she said she was thinking about running for a council seat, that’s when I dropped everything.
“We had no idea that this would be an eight-year journey with a lot of ups and downs,” Khaki adds. Which is putting it mildly; there were more bumps to follow even after the cameras stopped filming. Says Khaki, “We really tried our best to bring Sara to as many festivals as possible. But of course, because of the travel ban [in America], and because of other problems with the embassies, she was not able to acquire a visa.” Then, when the Oscars came ’round, America went to war with Iran.
“Sara was, at least in the documentary category, the only individual who was not invited,” says Khaki, “even though everybody within the Academy’s documentary branch would’ve loved to have her there.”
It made for a strange night. “People were talking about Iranian drones coming to attack,” recalls Eyni, “and there was an article saying that the presence of two Iranian filmmakers only made it ‘more sensitive’. One day we need to make a film about this experience and all of our emotions. We really envied the other nominees, they were there with very important stories, of course, but they didn’t have, I think, the [same stress we had]. Yes, we were there bringing a film from our country, but our country didn’t have the internet, and everyone was under a lot of pressure. Everything was exaggerated for us that day.”
THE FUTURE
Cineastes with sharp eyes may remember her as one of more than 100 actresses filmed in Abbas Kiarostami’s experimental 2008 film Shirin, but Pegah Ahangarani has long since moved beyond that an behind the camera. Making her first visit to Cannes this year, she will be debuting her latest feature doc Rehearsals for a Revolution, a highly personal journey through Iranian history leading up to her decision to leave the country in 2009.
“I hated acting,” says Ahangarani, now living in London. “Even when I was an actress, I didn’t like it. As a teenager, I found it was fun, especially because boys would recognize me on the streets and come over to me. Otherwise, I never liked acting. And I think that’s really the great result of immigration for me, because as long as you stay home, you’re always tempted to earn a living with what you’re already known for. But when I came to London, I decided that I would stick to it and become a filmmaker. That’s why immigration is such a sweet process for me.”
Rehearsals for a Revolution is made up of six chapters from Ahangarani’s life, ranging from her memories of her filmmaker parents, and the tragic death of her uncle Rashid, to the birth of her daughter. The title, she says, is “brand new”, and she’s still getting used to it. “What convinced me, I think, is that the word ‘rehearsal’ often refers to art and cinema, which reflects the fact that I myself come from an acting career. But it also refers to the voice of Rashid, in the third chapter, when he says that Iran is a country of failed revolutions. This is something that might sound sad and a bit desperate, but at the same time, it’s true. There’s been quite a lot of failed revolutions, but there is also hope. Rehearsal means there’s still time for one final revolution.”
Is she worried about the future of her homeland, given Donald Trump’s threat to wipe out the whole of Iranian civilization? “That’s a hard question,” she muses. “What I can say is that whatever happens in Iran, I hope that it keeps empowering the people. Because Iranian people need to be their own masters. They need to decide for themselves, because they never give up.
“That’s my personal, existential experience in Iran — Iranian people never give up. You cannot silence them. You cannot guilt them. You cannot deceive them. They always get up and fight.”
Does this explain the fact that Iranian culture is so heavily drawn to cinema? “I really wonder why that is,” she says. “I think it’s probably because Iranians are dreamers. They’re daydreamers. They really need to cling to imagination and fantasies to survive, and that’s the way we’ve always been. Sometimes when I’m with my bunch of friends here in London, we sit together in a small room and we’re just dreaming. All of us, we’re dreaming all the time.
“And it’s not only us or our generation because of what we went through. If I look at my grandmother, my father, my mother, we’re all the same. I think we all need to live in a fictional dream-like reality, and cinema is the best way we found to give body to it.”
English (US) ·