Tehran Blues, on OVID.tv

Anyone singing in Iran, necessarily sings the blues. Music is strictly forbidden for women and highly discouraged for men. For obvious reasons, busking is a tough business for a poet and musician like Erfan Shafei, but he and his street musician friends carry on as best they can in Spanish filmmaker Javier Tolentino’s documentary, Tehran Blues, which premieres this Thursday on OVID.tv.

Shafei’s get-together with other regional Iranian folk musicians feels more like a support group meeting than a workshop or a jam session. That does not suggest a great cultural state of affairs. Nevertheless, many of them discuss and perform music with tremendous passion, especially Golmehr Alami, whose vocal feature spot is absolutely hypnotic.

You might consider Shafei’s friends and colleagues the Persian or Iranian equivalent of Roots or Americana music. Many of them explore the neglected folk music traditions of their home regions. Often, you can blues-like undertones to their music. In fact, some of the instrumental solos even have a jazz vibe reminiscent of the Eastern-influenced drone-like recordings of artists like Coltrane and Lateef.

Toletino also follows Shafei on an unstructured, slackery tour Iran, in search of authentic regional music. It provides a fascinating reality check, revealing the genuine attitudes and opinions of working-class Iranians. A rugged fisherman completely upends expectations, expressing his intention to defy his country’s misogynistic two-parts-for-men and one-part-for-women inheritance tradition, because all his sons are idiots, while all his daughters have their act together. Indeed, he sounds quite progressive, albeit somewhat cautiously so.

Where God is not, on OVID.tv

They were exiled from Iran, but part of them will probably always remain in the notorious Evin and Ghezel Hesar prisons. Indeed, Mazyar Ebrahimi lives with the chronic pain constantly reminding him of the torture he endured there. Ebrahimi and two fellow survivors recreate the Iranian political prisoner experience for filmmaker Mehran Tamadon in Where God is not, which is now streaming on OVID.tv.

Ebrahimi had a video supply company, who was unjustly denounced, mostly likely by a business rival. When the torturers finished with him, he had confessed to the assassinations of several nuclear scientists. Absurdly, most of the details were wrong, because his “interrogators” force-fed him inaccurate information. For Tamadon’s benefit, Ebrahimi recreates his Stalinist-style televised confessions. He also transforms a bed in the abandoned Parisian factory serving as Tamadon’s makeshift studio, into a replica of the torture gurney his tormentors worked him over on. Yet, the re-enactment is too painful for Ebrahimi, even though Tamadon takes his place as the victim. Finding himself in his torturer’s position literally makes Ebrahimi sick to his stomach.

Although Ebrahimi is probably the least known internationally of Tamadon’s participants, his testimony is by far the most powerful. However, the filming process might have been the most difficult Homa Kahlor. Her memoir exposed the systemic abuse and grossly overcrowded conditions in Ghezel Hesar, but she clearly blames herself for helplessly standing-by, as she witnesses horrible acts of cruelty, while she served as an inmate-trustee.

Arguably, Iranian journalist Taghi Rahmani is the most famous veteran of Iranian prisons and Tamadon’s interview subject running the greatest risks, since his wife, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Narges Mohammadi, still remains behind bars. Dubbed “Iran’s mostly frequently jailed journalist” by Reporters Without Borders, he might also hold the record for incarceration within the film, with well over twelve years. Nevertheless, Rahmani yearns to return, because Iran is his home.

Oakville ’24: One Must Wash Eyes

The CCP is not the only oppressive regime engaging in the extraterritorial harassment of their critics. Iranian agents have already been indictment for the attempted kidnapping of democracy advocate Masih Alinejad—on American soil. She is a prominent activist, but the brutal Islamist regime has also targeted average people too. Consequently, Sahar has good reasons to worry about herself and her family when she is photographed at a Canadian demonstration in support of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in director-screenwriter Sepideh Yadegar’s One Must Wash Eyes, which premieres tonight at the 2024 Oakville Film Festival.

To remain in Canada on her student visa Sahar must pay her overdue tuition. Unfortunately, her mother has been unable to transfer the money, because her Uncle Hekmat has yet to buy out her late father’s share of their business. Her mother is trusting, but Sahar is justifiably suspicious. Things go from bad to worse when she is clearly and identifiably photographed at a Woman, Life, Freedom demonstration.

Immediately, her boss at the Persian grocery store fires her, fearing his association with her will jeopardize his frequent visits home. (Frankly, his shocking lack of sympathy for the democracy cries out for fuller exploration.) Shortly thereafter, Sahar gets a call from her mother, informing her the family received a threatening visit from the Basiji morals police.

Even though rational people would consider Sahar the smallest of small fries, viewers need to understand there nothing far-fetched in Yadegar’s screenplay. In fact, the authoritarian regime comes after everyday people like her all the time. If anything, Yadegar shows tremendous restraint in her depiction of their extraterritorial repression.

Despite the necessarily heavy political themes, One Must Wash Eyes (an awkward title, almost guaranteed to change that refers to Persian poet Sohrab Sepehri’s verse) is still more of a character study, examining the impact of extreme stress and alienation on the increasingly desperate Sahar.

Pegah Ghafoori (from From) is terrific as Sahar. She is an almost painfully realistic character, who makes a lot of mistakes, but they are all only too believable. Throughout it all, Ghafoori keeps her performance honest and grounded. Remember when you finished your degree? Now try to imagine going through that time while fearing for your safety and that of your family, but not trusting anyone enough to ask for help.

Animation First ’24: The Siren

By 1980, many (if not most) Iranians realized the Islamic Revolution was a national catastrophe. Unfortunately, the Iran-Iraq War had the unintended consequence of strengthening the Ayatollah’s hand, because when Iraq attacked, patriotic Iranians like Omid’s brother rallied to their country’s defense. The young (barely) teenager wants to serve, but instead he stays to care for his elderly grandfather in Sepideh Farsi’s The Siren, which screens as the closing night selection of this year’s Animation First.

Omid’s brother Amed has volunteered to defend their strategic (and oil-rich) port city of Abadan, like most young men his age. Their mother whisks their younger siblings off to safer territory, reluctantly leaving Omid in charge of crotchety grandpa. Omid hoped to join Amed on the frontlines, but he changes his tune when blunders into a full-scale fire-fight.

Unfortunately, the front constantly finds Abadan thanks to Saddam’s rocket attacks. Replacing Farshid, a surrogate big brother injured by shell fragments, on his food delivery route, Omed meets a colorful cross-section of Abadan’s remaining residents. There is an eccentric engineer, two Armenian priests safeguarding their church’s icon, and Elaheh, a former star vocalist, who has been living in quiet seclusion since the Revolutionary regime banned music.

Omid is even more interested in Elaheh’s pretty young daughter, Pari, who is also incredibly brave. Pari helped save Farshid’s life after the shelling, by using her headscarf as a torniquet—in what might be one of the most important scenes in you will see in an animated film this year. Learning the Iraqis are expected to soon overrun Abadan, Omid hatches an evacuation plan inspired by his father, a sea captain who went down with his wooden lenj.

The Siren is part magical realism and partly a brutally honest and unvarnished record of life under the Islamist regime’s Khomeini years. Screenwriter Javad Djavahery’s narrative is loaded with historical and social significance, but it also tells a highly relatable coming of age story. Of course, Omid faces vastly more peril than the kid on Boyhood.

A Revolution on Canvas: Nodjoumi’s Stolen Report on the Revolution

When Nikzad (Nicky) Nodjoumi had exhibitions at MoMA and the British Museum, any pieces he loaned them were scrupulously returned. That was not the case with his “blockbuster” solo show, “Report on the Revolution” held at the Tehran Museum of Modern Art in 1980. Over forty years later, Nodjoumi is still trying to recover the work that inspired riots and forced him into exile. From the safety of Brooklyn, Nodjoumi reaches out to Iranian contacts who might be able to help, while taking stock of his life, work, and family relationships in A Revolution on Canvas, an HBO-produced documentary co-directed by his daughter Sara Nodjoumi and her husband Till Schauder, which opens Friday in New York.

While studying in New York, Nodjoumi was an ardent member of the militant Iranian Student Association, protesting the Shah, the Vietnam War, Israel, and the West in general. His wife, artist Nahid Hagigat, was not so sure, but she went along with him for his sake. When he returned to Iran, Nodjoumi immediately joined the street demonstrations, but as soon as Khomeini and his clerics assumed control, he realized life in Iran was about to get far worse. He even joined demonstrations critical of the new regime, which he barely survived.

As a result, Nodjoumi was not actively promoting his latest work. Nevertheless, Masud Shafie Monfared, the museum director, approached Nodjoumi, suggesting a retrospective of his revolutionary era work. When it opened, gangs of thugs loyal to the new regime rioted in the museum. The next day, the state-controlled newspaper attacked one painting in particular with such incendiary terms, Monfared removed it for safe keeping—or so he told Nodjoumi at the time. Soon thereafter, Nodjoumi fled Iran in one of the last flights that left Tehran before Iraq bombed the airport. None of Nodjoumi’s work on display in the museum has been seen publicly since then.

Strangely, Monfared, who now splits between the Sacramento and Iran, could not remember any of these events when he sat for an interview with the Nodjoumis. Strange, right? You would think he would remember a riot in his museum and handling an ideologically radioactive painting that the new regime had so vociferously condemned. It certainly looks like he is covering for the crimes of the Iranian regime, while enjoying America’s hospitality.

Frontline: Inside the Iranian Uprising

How many times must the citizens of Iran take to the streets to protest their oppressive clerical regime, before the governments of the liberal West finally do something tangible to support them? Sadly, we are still asking. Who in the Biden administration could object to the most recent Iranian protest slogan: “women, life, freedom?” It is indeed Iranian women who were at the forefront of the latest round of protests and it has been Iranian women who have been dying as a result. Drawing on a wealth of protest footage posted (at least temporarily) to social media and authenticated by third parties, Nightline documents the demonstrations and the regime’s brutal response in director Majed Neisi’s “Inside the Iranian Uprising,” which premieres on digital this Thursday.

It all started with the murder Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman, who died in a Tehran hospital, after having been arrested by the Iranian Morality Police. Her story went viral throughout Iran and around the world, after reporters (one of whom, Niloofar Hamedi, has since been arrested) published photos of Amini in a coma and her parents grieving in the hospital.

Many women were so outraged, they took to the streets, burning their hijabs in public protests, even though that very definitely made them targets for the same savagery that killed Amini. One of those was Nika Shakarami, a 16-year-old YouTube influencer, who mysteriously disappeared after burning her hijab in a protest, until the government finally produced her body nine days later, claiming she was the victim of a highly convenient suicide.

Yet, some of the most horrific accounts of torture in this Frontline report come from men, like the medical student who bravely offers an on-camera description of how he was sodomized with a police baton. Neisi and the Frontline producers mask the identity of another torture victim, using a British voice actor to overdub his shocking account of how the so-called Morality Police raped him and another man while they were in custody.

The Cat (short)

Iran is shaped like a cat (vaguely, see here) and Persian cats are enormously popular pets there, yet they must be hidden away from the religious police who would confiscate them. It is therefore safe to say Iranians have a complex relationship with felines, but the makes the title of Los Angeles-based Persian thesp Mary Apick’s first animated short so apt. In thirteen minutes, Iran’s entire post-revolutionary history unfolds in a very symbolic and allegorical fashion in Apick’s The Cat, which releases tomorrow on YouTube.

Despite the Revolutionary government’s emphasis on morals, young street children in Tehran still face great hardships, like the little flower girl of Apick’s film. There is also prostitution and the exploitation that often comes with it, which is represented by the naked women boxed up in the Metropolis-like factory, or so we would assume.

Indeed, there is a lot of interpretive room in The Cat, but the dark corrupting wave that leaves only sludge and rubble in its wake pretty clearly seems to represent the oppressiveness of the current theocratic regime. Also, the graveyard of battered musical instruments certainly reflects their extreme Islamist attitudes towards music in particular and culture in general.

DOC NYC ’21: Be My Voice

The downside of social media is all too obvious (polarization, trolling, cat memes), but there are positives worth noting. You can get news directly from human rights activists around the world, uncensored and unfiltered, at least until they are arrested, like Joshua Wong was in Hong Kong. You can still join Masih Alinejad’s hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers (in fact, I recommend it). Alinejad’s social media savvy has made her a particularly annoying thorn in the side of the Iranian regime, but her prominence has cost her dearly. Nahid Persson captures Alinejad’s highs and lows as she continues her campaign against the fundamentalist regime in Be My Voice, which screens as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

It is immediately clear why the regime is so threatened by Alinejad. She has boundless energy and superstar charisma. She regularly delivers news from the Iranian streets to her army of followers on various social media networks and her VOA Persian broadcasts. As a result, most of her family back in Iran was forced to renounce her. The brave exception was her brother Ali, who served as her link to their parents and other siblings. Of course, identifying pressure points is one of the things oppressive governments do best. Consequently, they target him during the course of Persson’s scheduled filming with Alinejad.

Clearly, Alinejad’s overflowing sincerity is both her greatest strength and weakness. We can see only too well how deeply she feels everything. Sometimes her temper might be her second biggest enemy, but her passionate commitment is real and her enthusiasm is admirable. It is those qualities that built her extensive following in Iran, including a number of women (of all ages), who have publicly challenged mandatory chador laws, sending her videos of their defiance. If you are less than thrilled with face-masks, just imagine how much fun headscarves (or burqas in particularly restrictive Islamist nations) must be.

Born in Evin: Starting Life as a Political Prisoner

Maryam Zaree survived a nightmare of early childhood development and still turned out okay. It helped to have two loving parents—once they were released from Iran’s notoriously harsh Evin Prison. That is where Zaree spent the first two years of her life as an infant political prisoner, but she remembers nothing of the experience. Bothered by her gap in memory, Zaree tries to get her mother to finally discuss those nightmarish days in her deeply personal documentary, Born in Evin, which releases today on VOD.

Like many progressive Iranians, Zaree’s parents initially supported to revolution against the Shah, only to find themselves prisoners of conscience under the new, even less tolerant Islamist regime. Unlike many of their cell-mates, her mother Nargess and father Kasra were eventually released after years of brutal imprisonment, much to their own surprise. First, Zaree was turned over to her grandparents and then her mother was released. They immigrated to Frankfurt, where her father eventually joined them.

Her parents are no longer together, which sadly often happens when couples endure years of forced separation. Regardless, her father definitely remained part of her life. Yet, despite his greater openness to questions, he could tell her little, because he was held captive in the men’s wing of the prison.

At times, Born is almost too personal. We see a lot of Zaree’s agonizing over her mother’s reluctance to participate. However, as she widens her focus to include any other survivors who like her, either were born or spent formative years in the notorious prison, she makes valid points about memory and testimony. Indeed, the current regime would much prefer it if the survivors of Evin’s torture chambers refused to discuss the horrors they endured.

Rendez-Vous ’18: Before Summer Ends

Ah, home sweet oppressive regime. Iranian expatriates like these three grad students have a complicated relationship with their homeland. As one puts it, he feels more at home in Iran, but he is more like the person he wants to be in France. When one of the trio decides to return home, his two mates convince him to take one last (or rather first) road trip together in Maryam Goormaghtigh’s Before Summer Ends (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

Arash is a big fellow, who was apparently spoiled by his family in Iran. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ashkan and Hossein adapted better to life in Paris, especially the latter, who married a French woman. When Arash announces his plan to return, his friends try to talk him out of it, yet they obviously understand his decision. Nevertheless, they will have one last hurrah of easily accessible beer and wine, while camping out and carousing along the French Riviera.

Reportedly, Goormaghtigh originally intended to make a documentary about the refugee experience (because there are hardly any of those already), but the three expat friends just captured her filmmaking enthusiasm. Indeed, it is quietly compelling to watch them navigate their in-between expatriate existences: not citizens, not asylum-seekers, not illegal aliens, nor stateless fugitives.

Although filmed direct-documentary-style, Before often has the feel of a chatty Richard Linklater indie-road-comedy, especially when two French indie-rockers start tagging along. However, serious issues are always percolating right below the surface. In fact, we eventually learn Arash is not the only one who will have to make hard-and-fast residency decision.

The trio, simply credited as Arash, Ashkan, and Hossein (which is telling in itself), crack their share of scatological jokes, but they also have some shrewd insights to offer. Perhaps the resemblance between the geography of the south of France and the north of Iran put them in a conducive head-space. In any event, we certainly feel like we know them when the film finally runs its course.

Before Summer Ends is a small film, but it has some wry nuggets of wisdom to offer. Considering how much they enjoy their potent potables, it is hard to imagine the three amigos could re-acclimate to life in contemporary Medieval Iran, but they themselves suggest they are very different people in their native country. Recommended for those in the mood for a lowkey film that still has substance, Before Summer Ends screens tomorrow afternoon (3/17), as part of French Rendez-Vous ’18, at the Walter Reade.

Tehran Taboo: Sex and the Single Revolutionary Islamic Girl

It is like an underground Sex and the City, but consenting adults run the risk of arrest and torture at the hands of the morality police. Tehran is just as cosmopolitan and randy as any major city, but Islamist hypocrisy and misogyny has a poisonous effect on human relationships. Three middle class urban women try to negotiate the sexually charged terrain of the capital city in Ali Soozandeh’s bold animated feature, Tehran Taboo (trailer here), which opens at Film Forum on Valentine’s Day.

Pari must work as a prostitute to survive, because her incarcerated husband refuses to consent to a divorce or sign her employment applications. Ironically, Pari and scores of her colleagues walk the streets fairly openly, because the morality police prefers to crack down on couples holding hands. The Islamic Court judge will not grant her a divorce without the acquiescence of her deadbeat husband, but he offers to make her his kept woman instead.

As part of the deal, Pari and her young mute son Elias move into an upscale flat owned by the upstanding jurist. Though Pari is cagey about her own circumstances, she quickly befriends Sara, the pregnant wife of Mohsen, an entitled banker. She yearns to pursue a career of her own, but he categorically forbids it, using the pregnancy and her previous miscarriages as an excuse.

Meanwhile, electronica DJ Babak finds himself living the longest, most awkward morning after, when his hook-up from the previous night insists he fund her hymen reconstruction surgery. It seems Donya has a very large, possibly mobbed-up fiancé, who is expecting to marry a virgin.

Eventually, Pari will take a big sisterly interest in both Donya and Babak, but unfortunately, she can mostly offer moral support, rather than the financial kind. Nevertheless, Soozandeh brings his cast together in a convincingly organic manner, rather than contriving ways for their paths to cross. At various times, each woman is both a victim and a schemer, but the deck is always stacked against them.

The Iranian-born, Germany-based Soozandeh, who helped animate segments of the remarkable documentary The Green Wave, is shockingly frank, at least by Iranian standards. To put it in perspective, the film starts with Pari trying to perform a sex act often denoted by two letters on a flaccid cabbie, with the silently jaded Elias sitting in the back seat. Yet, through the use a child’s still somewhat innocent perspective, Soozandeh consciously embraces the tradition of classic Persian cinema.

Nevertheless, there is no denying the predatory and base nature of the men exploiting Pari, Sara, and Donya. By forcing sexual relations underground and under the table, they become effectively severed from the strictures of respectable society. In effect, only the law of the jungle applies.

Yet, nobody is entirely a victim (especially not Pari), because Soozandeh has drawn such distinctive and multi-dimensional characters. There are not merely symbols, they are women with stories to tell (or rather try to keep secret). You would think the animation would provide a protective layer between the film’s provocative subject matter and the contributing cast, but Soozandeh’s use of rotoscoping techniques means there are indeed bravely identifiable performances to be seen throughout Taboo. Even through the transformative animation, Elmira Rafizadeh’s work as Pari is remarkably earthy and gutsy, while Zahra Amir Ebrahimi is quietly devastating as Sara. Yet, it is the silent indicting gaze of Bilal Yasar’s Elias that will truly haunt viewers.

Soozandeh largely focuses on sexual/gender iniquities, but he does not ignore other forms of institutionalized injustice, such as the pointless censorship of Babak’s music and the shocking sight of bodies swaying from the gallows at a public execution. Soozandeh holds a rotoscoped mirror up to contemporary Iran and forces viewers to give it a long, hard look. The result is a viscerally powerful experience that both seduces and horrifies. It is an outstanding film, definitely in the tradition of Persepolis and The Breadwinner, but clearly intended for mature audiences. Very highly recommended, Tehran Taboo opens this Wednesday (2/14) in New York, at Film Forum. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Hot Docs ’16: Raving Iran

According to the Islamist Iranian government, Anoosh and Arash play “satanic” music. In their case, this means techno-house, but it could refer to any form of music that is not traditional Persian or classical piano. That necessarily makes the duo known professionally as Blade & Beard outlaws in their own country. Eventually, they will have to choose between their home and their passion in Susanne Regina Meures’s Raving Iran (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Hot Docs in Toronto.

The double meaning of Meures’ title is inescapably spot-on accurate. As they try to build their careers in Tehran’s ultra-underground rave scene, Anoosh and Arash constantly ask has nothing changed under Rouhani, the purported “liberal.” Sadly, the answer is always a resounding no. From the DJs perspective, if the Islamist regulation of music and culture has changed at all, it has become more intrusive and arbitrary.

In what amounts to a Sisyphean mock epic, Anoosh and Arash visit a series of printers and media stores, hoping to get their album covers printed and possibly secure distribution for their newest CD. Time and again, the proprietors tell them they are under government surveillance. Several believe their phones are tapped. One store owner tells the duo he was recently arrested for selling a heavy metal CD that had been duly approved by the state, only to have the sanction revoked retroactively, with no public notice.

One of the intrepid DJs is even briefly arrested, but fortunately he is not blackballed from traveling to Switzerland for an electronic music festival. There Blade & Beard can actually enjoy an alcoholic beverage in public, while they listen to new music at its most unruly. They definitely make the most of their days abroad, but a critical decision looms.

Throughout Raving, there are a number of grey dots obscuring the faces of those enjoying the Iranian techno scene and most of the closing credits for the Iranian shoot are billed as “anonymous.” Obviously, Meures went to considerable lengths to protect the innocent, as any rational humanist would see them. Still, we have to wonder how Meures secured some of the early footage of Anoosh and Arash beating their heads against a wall of censorship. Some of it is truly mind-blowing, like their visit to the government office that authorizes (or more likely denies) licenses for public performances.

You cannot hold any illusions about the state of intellectual and artistic freedom in Iran while watching Raving. (Quick, let’s make this regime a nuclear power.) On the other hand, it fully addresses the wrenching emotional decisions involved in asylum-seeking. It is an extraordinarily brave and honest documentary that also features plenty of real deal techno. Very highly recommended, Raving Iran screens this Sunday (5/1), Tuesday (5/3), and next Saturday (5/7), as part of Hot Docs ’16.

DWF ’15: Ablution (short)

Iran might have an Islamist government, but notwithstanding the revolution, average Iranians have never been generally inclined towards fundamentalist orthodoxy. This disconnect will deeply confuse a young devout Muslim woman in Canadian-Iranian filmmaker Parisa Barani’s short Ablution (trailer here), which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

Neda Enezari’s mother Afsenah makes no secret she was a “mistake,” whereas the pious twenty-something regards Afsenah’s second marriage as a sin. Neda’s brother Omid reluctantly serves as a buffer between them. He is also much more modern in his thinking, but he respects his sister’s religious devotion. Tensions are already high, with the Iran-Iraq War rudely interrupting everyday life on a regular basis. Resenting her unhappiness, particularly since she represents the Islamic Revolutionary ideal better than nearly everyone around her, Enezari will start to make a series of unfortunate decisions.

It should be clearly noted Ablution portrays the fundamentalist Enezari in profoundly respectful terms. It also finds considerable value in religious observance. However, it is hard to think the ruling theocrats would consider the film to be good for business. Rightly or wrongly, Enezari’s ardent faith is isolating and alienating in practice. The symbolic interludes inspired by Sufism probably would not sit well with the Shia powers-that-be either. Although not a primary focus of the film, Barani and her co-writer-co-stars Melissa Recalde and Amin El Gamal also give viewers a sense of the intrusive fear and paranoia begot by the state and its feared Basij morality militia.

Recalde plays Enezari with admirable restraint and sensitivity, but it is Amin El Gamal who probably earns the “breakout” honors as the conflicted Omid Enezari. More than just a nice guy (always a tricky role to play) or an audience entry point, he really embodies the heart of the film’s religious and social anxieties.

Barani’s short offers an intimate look inside a middle class Iranian home, challenging some preconceptions and confirming others. Indeed, it is provocative in ways we can only obliquely hint at here. Highly recommended for those who appreciate Iranian cinema and Persian culture, Ablution screens this Saturday (5/30) as part of Competition Shorts: Group 3, at DWF18.

Desert Dancer: To Dance in Iran

“If you’re an artist, we’ll beat you artistically.” Yes, this is what passes for wit with the Basij, Iranian’s Islamist civilian paramilitary militia. Ironically, Afshin Ghaffarian got off relatively easily when a Basij chief spoke those words to him. Had he known Ghaffarian was actually a dancer, he most likely would have beaten him to death (quick, let’s make a nuclear deal with them). Ghaffarian and his friends were among the thousands brutalized by the Basij during the 2009 election protests, but they simply wanted to put on a public performance. Their brief moments of freedom are stirringly depicted in Richard Raymond’s based-on-fact bio-picture, Desert Dancer (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Against all odds, Ghaffarian received clandestine arts education during his elementary years from a courageous teacher. He was a relatively experienced actor by the time he reached college, but his was always fascinated by the strictly forbidden discipline of dance. Of course, youtube is duly blocked in Iran, but when he went online through a friend’s work-around access, he discovered a wealth of performances from the likes of Nureyev and Gene Kelly. Soon he convinces a handful of friends to join his proposed underground dance troupe. Everyone is understandable uneasy when the mysterious Elaheh invites herself into the group, but she turns out to be okay. She also has real technique, having been secretly trained by her former ballerina mother.

Longing to perform in front of a live audience, Ghaffarian and Elaheh will stage an intimate recital for a handful of carefully invited friends in a secluded desert location. Unfortunately, their friend Mehran’s older brother is a junior Basij commander, who is determined to ferret out Ghaffarian’s small ensemble. When another member is severely beaten by the Basij for his reformist allegiances, it puts further stress on the group. Soon Ghaffarian also finds himself be ruthlessly worked over in an unmarked Basij van. However, his fate will take a dramatic turn on the third act.

While the real life Ghaffarian has stressed the film’s thin layer of fictionalization, Raymond and screenwriter Jon Croker are scrupulously faithful to the tenor and circumstances surrounding the ill-fated 2009 Green Movement, as well as the general difficulties of being artistically inclined while living under a repressive regime. Desert is also closely akin to Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer (which won the Astaire Award for best film choreography) for the manner in which it portrays the powerful expressiveness of dance, while also using it as a symbol for freedom. In fact, Akram Khan’s choreography is unusually distinctive and Astaire Award-worthy, incorporating elements of ballet and modern interpretive dance.

To their estimable credit, co-leads Reece Ritchie and Freida Pinto clearly trained hard for their roles, because they do Khan’s steps justice. Frankly, when they are standing still, their romantic chemistry is just so-so, but when they move together, they heat up the screen. There are ably supported by a fine ensemble, particularly including the deeply humanistic performances of Makram Khoury, as Ghaffarian’s old teacher Mehdi, and Bamshad Abedi-Amin as the quietly courageous Mehran. It is also nice to see Nazanin Boniadi, albeit ever so briefly, in a near cameo as Ghaffarian’s progressive mother, Parisa.

Desert vividly captures the ominous atmosphere of the 2009 crackdown, as well as the liberating power of dance. In his feature directorial debut, Raymond maintains a tense, paranoid vibe, but also exhibits an intuitive sense for when to go for the emotional jugular. It is an inspiring story that is undiminished by the real life Ghaffarian’s recently more circumspect rhetoric. Enthusiastically recommended, Desert Dancer opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine and the Loews Lincoln Square.

Sundance ’15: Beach Flags (short)

They might be lifeguards, but their lives are nothing like Baywatch and Vida is not anything like Pam Anderson. For one thing, she happens to be an excellent lifeguard, but because her team is required to wear headscarves in international competitions, she can only participate in one event: her weakest. It is unnecessarily hard to be a young Iranian woman in Sarah Saidan’s terrific animated short film, Beach Flags (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Vida knows she deserves to represent Iran at the Australian meet, because she is the best on her squad, even when it comes to their only allowable event—a race across the beach to capture the flag. She outclasses everyone until the coach brings in the abnormally tall and fleet Sareh. Try as she might, Vida just cannot catch her. Understandably, she resents the newcomer, vibing her hard. However, when she inadvertently spies on Sareh’s home life, Vida’s perspective changes radically. It turns out it is even harder for Sareh to be a young woman in Iranian.

Beach Flags says volumes about the state of women’s rights in Iranian, beginning with the absurdity of the restrictions placed on the lifeguard squad, but shifting to the profoundly depressing circumstances faced by Sareh. It is a pivot Saidan makes with considerable grace. Yet, even though the film addresses pressing human rights issues, Beach Flags is really a lovely little coming-of-age tale that will leave viewers feeling good—which is quite a trick to pull off.

Saidan’s animation is not as richly detailed as a Studio Ghibli masterwork, but it has an appropriately Persian vibe that transports the audience to the two very different Irans inhabited by the rival team members. It is a powerful piece of storytelling that also happens to be rather timely. Highly recommended, Beach Flags screens again today (1/24) in Salt Lake and Monday (1/26) and next Saturday (1/31) in Park City as part of the Animation Spotlight shorts program at this year’s Sundance.

First Look ’15: I for Iran

You can find some rather unpleasant images and references in the text books of post-Islamic Revolutionary Iran. Nobody understands that better than an Iranian-Persian filmmaker’s Persian tutor. However, he still uses a problematic text due to a lack of better options. His language lessons will illuminate deeper truths in Sanaz Azari’s I for Iran (trailer here), which screens during the Museum of the Moving Image’s 2015 First Look.

Azari was born in Iran, but lived in Brussels since early childhood. As a result, she did not speak Persia until she enrolled in classes as an adult. During her studies, she was struck by the way language carries cultural specific codes and meanings. This was particularly so with respects to Persia and Iranian identity, even and especially following the revolution. As he bemoans their textbook, Behrouz Majidi will expound on the beauties and ironies of Persian culture in a series of improvised lectures.

That might sound rather academic, but Majidi is the sort of screen presence who could read the Brussels phone book and keep the audience riveted. His delivery is sort of like vintage Mark Twain—drily witty and deceptively elliptical. Just when you think he is hopelessly off point, he brings each mini-monologue home with panache. At times he waxes nostalgic for lost Iranian treasures, like the storied Shirazi wine the Islamist government has long since forbidden. When he addresses current events, such as the 2013 presidential elections, his analysis also sounds pretty darn spot-on.

Unfortunately, that means Majidi is more of a realist than an optimist. However, his love for Persian culture and nostalgia for the Iran that once was is wholly engaging and at times quite touching.  In between his improvised riffs, Azari presents a sort of visual free association based on the particular Persian letter under discussion. Frankly, these seem to work better over time, with the latter chain of images taking on far more evident meaning. Still, for the most part, they just take viewers away from the heart of the film.

I for Iran might sound simple and in terms of its formal structure it certainly is. However, despite its mere fifty minute running time, it overflows with thoughtful insights on human nature and grand themes like freedom, cultural survival, and human dignity. For such an unassuming film, it really sticks with viewers. Even though it is hard to define its cinematic category and the exact nature of Majidi’s performance, it still ought to be a star-making turn. Surprisingly moving, I for Iran is very highly recommended when it screens this Saturday (1/17), with the equally difficult to classify International Tourism as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI.

Keys of Heaven: Innocence Martyred

You could say Majid and Adel have student deferments. They are fifteen and twelve, respectively. Of course, that is hardly too young to die for Revolutionary Iran, especially when it was locked in mortal combat with Iraq. They might live in an Orwellian state prosecuting an apparently endless war, but the brothers lead desperate Dickensian lives in Finnish-Iranian director Hamy Ramezan’s short film, Keys of Heaven (trailer here), which starts a special three-day engagement tomorrow in Los Angeles.

It is in fact 1984. Majid and Adel are homeless in the great Islamist republic, but the elder brother insists they keep attending school. Should they drop out, they would be prime candidates to join the 500,000 other Iranian children who served in the Iran-Iraq War. They work late into the night as street hawkers to earn money for a more permanent relocation, because for some reason, Majid has cut all ties to their widower father. Unfortunately, the dissolute old Kiamarz still has the brothers’ identification papers, which they will need to sit for their final exams.

Keys is a dark film with a bracingly bitter twist that Ramezan skillfully implies rather than bashing the audience’s heads with it. The film very definitely protests the use of child soldiers, but it acknowledges (obliquely) even worse crimes. It also depicts the ruthlessness of the Ayatollah’s thought police in no uncertain terms. Yet, the brothers’ relationship is the engine driving the film.

Salar Ashtiyani gives an extraordinarily honest performance as the gaunt Majid. The young actor maintains a brittle intensity while subtly turning his big revelations. Yazdan Akhoondi’s Adel reliably serves as a wide-eyed picture of innocence and Shaghayeh Djodat brings considerable nuance and sensitivity to bear as the teacher who tries to help the brothers, but lacks a full understanding of their situation.

Filmed in Turkey with Farsi dialogue, Keys feels absolutely genuine. The period details look right and the atmosphere of paranoia is quite tangible. It could be called a powerful coming-of-age tale in a country where vulnerable children, like the brothers, frequently do not live long enough to come of age. Another fine example of diasporic Iranian filmmaking, Keys of Heaven is highly recommended when it screens this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons (12/9-12/11) at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.

MIX NYC ’14: Desert Lullabies (short)

It is tough to be a kid in Iran. It is also hard to live with dignity as a woman and hard to live at all as a LGBT Iranian. Human rights for everyone remains a serious issue in the country, but the potential wartime death of innocence has become an increasingly pressing and universal concern throughout global battlefields. However, California-based filmmaker Monely Soltani explores it from a distinctly Persian perspective in the narrative short film Desert Lullabies (trailer here), which screens during MIX NYC: the 27^th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival.

Tara’s mother Homa has a hard time explaining why her dissident father has not yet returned as he promised. She has an even harder time explaining why they must flee their home at dawn. She has just received a last-minute warning the government imminently plans raze their rebellious village along with all its inhabitants, but that is an awful lot to burden a young child with.

As she slips into a feverish slumber, Tara will be visited by the spirit of her beloved grandmother and the goddess Anahita, but do not expect a happy ending, per se. Despite Desert’s fable-like vibe, reality still is what it is. Nonetheless, simply carrying on constitutes a victory.

Shot on location in Death Valley, but utilizing extensive green screen work, Desert seems to exist eerily out of time, like some sort of near future-Medieval dystopia. Some of the effects might somewhat reflect Soltani’s presumed budget constraints, but the evocative interiors of Homa’s modest home have a Spartan but tangibly lived-in feel.

While Desert is only fifteen minutes long, Shila Ommi’s performance as Homa packs quite a punch. Based on Soltani’s own mother, she vividly conveys all of Homa’s motherly courage and desperation. As Tara, Ariana Molkara’s work is also unusually sensitive and unaffected. Viewers will definitely believe they are family—a tragically incomplete family.

Soltani does not belabor the particulars of the current regime, but there are enough Iranian signifiers, starting with the Persian dialogue, to cue viewers’ pre-existing context. In fact, it could be seen as part the leading edge of an emerging Persian-American cinema, along with Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.

Although Soltani’s previous short documentary won an award from USC’s Lambda Association, Desert would not seem to be a natural fit for MIX NYC, but cheers to them for not being stylistically or thematically dogmatic. Highly recommended, Desert Lullabies also looks like one of the more accessible films in the Ancient Futures program, which screens tonight (11/12) at the 27^th MIX NYC.

UNAFF ’14: My Stolen Revolution

It is pretty heavy when an atheist Marxist confesses nostalgia for the Shah of Iran. Nahid Persson Sarvestani does not express such a sentiment in those exact terms, but she comes close, readily arguing the Islamist regime that followed the Shah’s secular authoritarian rule turned out to be far, far worse. Essentially establishing the Islamist-theocratic corollary to the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, Persson Sarvestani collects the harrowing oral history of several former comrades in My Stolen Revolution (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2014 UN Association Film Festival in the Stanford area.

As a teenager, Persson Sarvestani was an ardent leftist, who had no qualms about joining forces with the Islamic fundamentalists against the Shah. In retrospect, this was a mistake. She ruefully admits the Islamists had superior organization, which launched them into power when Carter pulled the rug out from under our ally the Shah. Soon, the new regime was imprisoning and torturing proven troublemakers like Persson Sarvestani. Although she was able to get out of the country while the getting was good, her younger brother was executed in her place.

Long nurturing an acute case of survivor’s guilt, Persson Sarvestani sought out several revolutionary comrades who were not so fortunate, in the hope they could offer some insight regarding her brother’s final days. However, the reunion with her former cadre leader does not go so well. Persson Sarvestani is appalled to find the good leftist has found solace in the Muslim faith she once rejected. For Persson Sarvestani, that is a deal-breaker.

Fortunately, the subsequent colleagues she tracks down have remained reasonably true to their ideals. Instead of a misogynistic religion, they take comfort in art. Unlike Persson Sarvestani they saw the insides of Iran’s political prisons and lived to tell about it—barely. Indeed, most of the women are dealing with the lingering pain and physical ailments caused by the extreme torture they endured.

Their stories are so harrowing it is no exaggeration to say Persson Sarvestani’s experiences pale in comparison. She is clearly just as aware of this as viewers will be, yet there is still an awful lot of her throughout the film. When she invites her new friends on a retreat to share their testimony, the film would have been better served if she had just stepped out of the way, rather than making such a point of grappling with her own feelings.

Nevertheless, the women’s individual indictments of the Revolutionary regime are powerful stuff. Of course, the ruling ideology and theocratic state apparatus responsible for the physical and psychological torture of sixteen year old girls remains unchanged. Despite a few video diary indulgences, My Stolen Revolution is a timely and valuable film. Recommended for viewers concerned about international women’s rights, it screens this Saturday (10/25) in Palo Alto, as part of session 25 of this year’s UNAFF.

Sundance ’14: Sepideh Reaching for the Stars

In the provincial Iranian foothills, an astronomy club sets up a portable telescope outside a skeletal observatory, abandoned halfway through the construction process. Meanwhile, it is full speed ahead for Iran’s nuclear reactors.  Such are the scientific priorities in today’s Iran.  For a teenage girl harboring astronomical dreams, the cultural climate is even trickier.  Documentary filmmaker Berit Madsen quietly observes her subject plugging away in Sepideh Reaching for the Stars (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Star-gazing has profound personal significance for Sepideh Hooshyar. It is a form of meditation and a way to commune with the spirit of her beloved late father.  As an intelligent student blessed with an independent streak, she has been tapped as a leader of her extracurricular astronomy club. Naturally, her patriarchal deadbeat uncles do not think very much of young women practicing astronomy. For reasons of greed and pettiness, they have jeopardized the financial position of Hooshyar’s mother.  Still, the young woman is not inclined to kowtow to anybody.

While Hooshyar never directly addresses any political or ideological controversies, it would still be fair to describe her as a free-thinker.  Throughout the film, she addresses her diary entries to her muse, Albert Einstein, and takes inspiration from her idol, Iranian American astronaut Anousheh Ansari (whom she erroneously considers the “first woman in space”).

Intellectually, most viewers understand Iran is far from a progressive society, but there are scenes of unabashed misogyny in Sepideh that will drop their jaws and boil their blood. Clearly, young Hooshyar is nearly always the smartest person in the room, but her government, society, and extended family all seem determined to squander her talents.

Given her fly-on-the-wall style, Madsen’s never offers any commentary or context, but it is transparently evident where these attitudes come from. The men and assorted female authority figures are all swimming in Islamist rhetoric.  Filmed in a rather flat, colorless HD, Sepideh is not particularly cinematic looking, but there are real stakes to the drama that unfolds.

In many ways, Sepideh could be considered a fitting documentary companion to Haifaa Al Monsour’s narrative feature, Wadjda.  It is a timely film, but a deeply personal story.  Highly recommended, Sepideh Reaching for the Stars screens again tomorrow (1/21), Thursday (1/23), and Friday (1/24) in Park City, as part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.