‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’ Sees Israel-Iran Filmmaking Collaboration Bear Fruit Amid Escalating Conflict: ‘Hate Will Not Work’

On Oct. 1, as Iran was firing a fusillade of missiles on his country, Israeli director Eran Riklis was in Tel Aviv “trying to cling on to the fact” that he would hopefully soon be premiering his new film “Reading Lolita in Tehran” — which he calls “an iconic Iranian story, featuring iconic Iranian actresses” — at the Rome Film Festival.

On Oct. 27, one day after Israel launched retaliatory missile strikes on Iran, Rikils beamed on stage as he accepted the Rome event’s audience award and special jury prize alongside most of the film’s ensemble female cast that includes Golshifteh Farahani, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Mina Kavani, Isabella Nefar and Raha Rahbari.

At a time when tensions between Israel and Iran are soaring, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” – an adaptation of Azar Nafisi’s bestselling autobiographical novel about a fearless literature teacher in post-revolution Tehran – stands as a powerful symbol of filmmakers working together to counter political leaders that are waging war.

“These girls are gathered around literature, around art, around culture,” Farahani said at the film’s Rome press conference. “As artists, we don’t take refuge in bombs and wars; we take refuge in art.”

For Amir Ebrahimi, who won the Cannes best actress award in 2022 for her role in Ali Abbasi’s “Holy Spider,” working with an Israeli director is not a novelty. Last year, she co-directed the Venice-premiering female empowerment thriller “Tatami” with Guy Nattiv, marking the first collaboration by Iranian and Israeli filmmakers.

“Sometimes I get criticised by my [Palestinian] friends who ask me why I have chosen to work with Israeli people,” Amir Ebrahimi told Variety. “And every time, I try to explain to them … that we are all in the same situation: Iranian people, Palestinian people and Israeli people. We are all hostages to the people in power.”

Amir Ebrahimi also pointed out that “not all of us have the opportunity to go beyond [hostilities] and to get to know each other and that’s why I felt that, just like ‘Tatami,’ ‘Lolita’ was a great opportunity.”

Riklis, who is known for directing female-centric dramas steeped in Middle East politics such as “The Syrian Bride” and Hiam Abbas-starrer “Lemon Tree,” really loved Nafisi’s book, which he thought matched his filmmaking style. So he reached out to her in 2017.

“I found Azar in Washington, we spoke on the phone and I said, ‘Does it make sense that I hop on a plane and come to see you?'” She said yes. Riklis then worked on the screenplay with U.S. writer Marjorie David (“Dark Angel”), noting that “we brought different cultures to the script.”

The film, about how Nafisi (played by Farahani) gathered seven of her female students and formed a book club of sorts to read forbidden Western classics just as post-revolution Islamic extremism mounted in Iran, was eventually shot in Italy. It was produced by Israel’s United King Films, Italy’s Minerva Pictures and Rosamont with RAI Cinema. London-based WestEnd Films is handling international sales.

In her review, Variety film critic Tomris Laffly praised “Reading Lolita” as “a moving adaptation of Iranian-American author and professor Azar Nafisi’s memoir.”

Nafisi, who saw the film in Rome for the first time, is happy with the outcome. At the Rome presser, she pointed out how her story connects to the latest tragic developments in her country and the wave of protests sparked across Iran by the death of Mahsa Amini. 

“Their slogan is: ‘Woman, Life, Freedom,'” Nafisi said. “They have inherited the courage of their mothers and grandmothers; of the women who at the beginning of the revolution took to the streets and shouted, ‘Freedom is neither Eastern, nor Western. Freedom is universal!'”

Nafisi added that “this is what I wanted to bring to ‘Reading Lolita.’ I wanted the West to know that the Israeli government and the Iranian government are creating wars not just in their own land, but in the region. In the whole world. And we the people should do as these girls did in the book and in the film. We should send this message that hate will not work.”