Iranian filmmakers are secretly filming dual versions of scenes from their movies in anticipation of a regime change after months of protests against hard-line Islamic rule in their country.
The hijab-free scenes – where actresses are portrayed without the head covering that is mandatory for women in the country – are part of a widespread protest movement in Iran sparked after Masha Amin’s death in police custody in September.
The 22-year-old woman had been arrested by Iran’s controversial ‘morality policy’ after being told she was not wearing her head-covering correctly. Iranian authorities claim she died of natural causes related to a heart condition; critics say she died after being beaten.
Her death sparked a wave of widespread protests that Iranian authorities have sought to suppress through an increasingly violent crackdown. At least 469 people, including 63 children and 32 women, have been killed by Iranian security and law enforcement officials, according to a new report published Dec.
The hijab-free scenes – where actresses are portrayed without the head covering that is mandatory for women in the country – are part of a widespread protest movement in Iran sparked after Masha Amin’s death in police custody in September.
The 22-year-old woman had been arrested by Iran’s controversial ‘morality policy’ after being told she was not wearing her head-covering correctly. Iranian authorities claim she died of natural causes related to a heart condition; critics say she died after being beaten.
Her death sparked a wave of widespread protests that Iranian authorities have sought to suppress through an increasingly violent crackdown. At least 469 people, including 63 children and 32 women, have been killed by Iranian security and law enforcement officials, according to a new report published Dec.
- 12/19/2022
- by Nick Holdsworth
- Variety Film + TV
Gulabi GangThe legacy of feminist cinema showcases the complexities of women’s humanity through different prisms of ideology, time, landscapes, and national origin. The revolutionary potential of witnessing women’s liberation through a visual medium has provided a deeper and more complex portrayal of the diversity of narratives and characters that have otherwise been stripped from other areas of culture. These will only grow under the blossoming contemporary feminist movement that will celebrate the 103th anniversary of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2017. This anniversary comes mere months after the momentous Women’s March, whose formation has roots in the result of Donald Trump’s presidential win but was truly years in the making with cuts to reproductive healthcare access, trans and queer civil rights, and general inadequacies towards women. The galvanization of millions of women around the world has ushered an even greater desire for better representation on screen,...
- 3/8/2017
- MUBI
Banning the celebrated director from making films is the latest step in the regime's attempt to murder the nation's creative soul
A spectre is haunting the Islamic Republic of Iran – the spectre of freedom. All the powers of the old guard have entered a holy alliance to exorcise it: the ayatollahs and their warlords, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, hanging judges and paramilitary vigilantes.
To try to exorcise that spectre, the custodians of the sacred terror will go to any lengths. But have they gone just a bit too far this time?
What exactly does it mean to condemn a globally celebrated film-maker who has done nothing but bring credit to his profession and glory to his homeland, to six years in prison, and on top of that to ban him from making a film for 20 years, from writing any script, from attending any film festival outside his country, or giving any...
A spectre is haunting the Islamic Republic of Iran – the spectre of freedom. All the powers of the old guard have entered a holy alliance to exorcise it: the ayatollahs and their warlords, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, hanging judges and paramilitary vigilantes.
To try to exorcise that spectre, the custodians of the sacred terror will go to any lengths. But have they gone just a bit too far this time?
What exactly does it mean to condemn a globally celebrated film-maker who has done nothing but bring credit to his profession and glory to his homeland, to six years in prison, and on top of that to ban him from making a film for 20 years, from writing any script, from attending any film festival outside his country, or giving any...
- 12/24/2010
- by Hamid Dabashi
- The Guardian - Film News
'Dogs' day at Bermuda festival
Stray Dogs was named best narrative feature of the eighth Bermuda International Film Festival. Directed by Iranian Marziveh Meshkini, the film tells the story of two young children left to fend for themselves in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Murderball, from directors Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro, was recognized as best documentary feature, while the Bermuda Shorts Award was given to Goodbye, Cruel World. Les Choristes (The Chorus) picked up the Audience Choice Award; the runner-up was Mad Hot Ballroom. Seventy films from 20 countries were shown, while a special sidebar highlighted Iranian cinema.
- 3/29/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Day I Became a Woman
"The Day I Became a Woman" is an engrossing triptych of women's lives in Iran and, by extension, many Middle Eastern societies. In this astonishing first film, director Marzieh Meshkini presents three short stories, which are eventually linked in the final story. Each catches a woman at a different stage of life -- a child, a young adult and an old woman. And each suffers from the emotional trauma -- no, that's not too loaded a word -- of being a woman in that society.
Opening Friday in key markets as part of the Shooting Gallery's spring film series, "Day" might possess staying power in art house venues. Every bit as powerful as Jafar Panahi's "The Circle" -- another blunt statement about the social oppression of Iranian women -- this film catapults Meshkini into the "Someone to Watch" category.
The stories take place on an Iranian island called Kish. In the first episode, a girl (Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar) awakens one morning to the bewildering insistence by her mother and grandmother that today, her ninth birthday, she has become a woman -- which in this traditional Moslem society means that she can no longer go outside to play with boys.
Learning she was born at noon, which is yet another hour away, she makes a bargain with her mother so that she can go outside as a girl until that time arrives. She is given a long stick, which, when placed in the sand, throws a shadow that gradually shortens as the noon hour approaches.
The second episode sees a young woman (Shabnam Toloui) in a billowing full-length chador competing in a women's bicycle race. First, her husband gallops after her on horseback, demanding that she return home. When she refuses, he returns with a mullah to divorce her on the spot. She is then pursued by the men in her family, then the village elders and, finally, her two brothers.
The final episode turns surreal. An old woman (Azizeh Seddighi) arrives at Kish Airport and hires an army of local boys to help her on a buying spree. In a modern shopping complex, she purchases all sorts of major household appliances and furniture -- things she has always wanted but never had in her life. Wrapped around her fingers are bits of fabric, each to remind her of a major purchase.
She and her young coolies then head for the beach, where, in a scene that would not feel out of place in a Fellini movie, she sets out all her gadgets and appliances on the sand but has no idea how to use them.
In the final moments, when characters from the first two episodes wander through the old lady's bizarre household-by-the-sea, Meshkini reinforces the idea that what we are witnessing is in fact three phases in the same woman's life. The girl cannot understand her sudden loss of freedom. As a young woman, her determination to reclaim part of that freedom comes at a cost. Then, in old age, she has, in a sense, regained that freedom but no longer knows how to use it.
Meshkini, who developed each episode from stories created by her producer Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- who is also her husband and mentor -- finds distinctly visual means to express the key element in each story: the rapidly disappearing shadow of the stick, like sand running out of an hour glass; the galloping horses contrasted with the steadily churning bicycle in the "chase" sequence; and the absurdity of enormous boxes and large consumer goods wheeling through city streets, then winding up on a beach and later on makeshift barges heading to a ship at sea.
"Day" plays like an old silent movie with scant dialogue and such expressive sounds as horses's hooves and bicycle gears. This visual austerity -- the paucity of camera setups and the use of editing to achievement movement -- powerfully conveys the film's emotional content. The director is aided by contributions from cinematographers Ebraheem Ghafouri and Mohammad Ahmadi and editors Shahrzad Pouya and Makhmalbaf as well as folk music that flavors the island's scenic locations.
The actors appear to be mostly nonpros, but what eloquent faces they have. Even those in minor roles bring tremendous energy to this awesome landscape of deprivation.
THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
Shooting Gallery
Makhmalbaf Film House
Screenwriter-producer: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Director: Marzieh Meshkini
Directors of photography: Ebraheem Ghafouri, Mohammad Ahmadi
Production designer: Akbar Meshkini
Music: Mohammad Reza Darvishi
Editors: Shahrzad Pouya, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Color/stereo
Cast:
Girl: Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar
Woman: Shabnam Toloui
Old Woman: Azizeh Seddighi
Boy: Hassan Nabehan
Husband: Cyrus Kahouri Nejad
Young Boy: Badr Irouni Nejad
Running time -- 78 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Opening Friday in key markets as part of the Shooting Gallery's spring film series, "Day" might possess staying power in art house venues. Every bit as powerful as Jafar Panahi's "The Circle" -- another blunt statement about the social oppression of Iranian women -- this film catapults Meshkini into the "Someone to Watch" category.
The stories take place on an Iranian island called Kish. In the first episode, a girl (Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar) awakens one morning to the bewildering insistence by her mother and grandmother that today, her ninth birthday, she has become a woman -- which in this traditional Moslem society means that she can no longer go outside to play with boys.
Learning she was born at noon, which is yet another hour away, she makes a bargain with her mother so that she can go outside as a girl until that time arrives. She is given a long stick, which, when placed in the sand, throws a shadow that gradually shortens as the noon hour approaches.
The second episode sees a young woman (Shabnam Toloui) in a billowing full-length chador competing in a women's bicycle race. First, her husband gallops after her on horseback, demanding that she return home. When she refuses, he returns with a mullah to divorce her on the spot. She is then pursued by the men in her family, then the village elders and, finally, her two brothers.
The final episode turns surreal. An old woman (Azizeh Seddighi) arrives at Kish Airport and hires an army of local boys to help her on a buying spree. In a modern shopping complex, she purchases all sorts of major household appliances and furniture -- things she has always wanted but never had in her life. Wrapped around her fingers are bits of fabric, each to remind her of a major purchase.
She and her young coolies then head for the beach, where, in a scene that would not feel out of place in a Fellini movie, she sets out all her gadgets and appliances on the sand but has no idea how to use them.
In the final moments, when characters from the first two episodes wander through the old lady's bizarre household-by-the-sea, Meshkini reinforces the idea that what we are witnessing is in fact three phases in the same woman's life. The girl cannot understand her sudden loss of freedom. As a young woman, her determination to reclaim part of that freedom comes at a cost. Then, in old age, she has, in a sense, regained that freedom but no longer knows how to use it.
Meshkini, who developed each episode from stories created by her producer Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- who is also her husband and mentor -- finds distinctly visual means to express the key element in each story: the rapidly disappearing shadow of the stick, like sand running out of an hour glass; the galloping horses contrasted with the steadily churning bicycle in the "chase" sequence; and the absurdity of enormous boxes and large consumer goods wheeling through city streets, then winding up on a beach and later on makeshift barges heading to a ship at sea.
"Day" plays like an old silent movie with scant dialogue and such expressive sounds as horses's hooves and bicycle gears. This visual austerity -- the paucity of camera setups and the use of editing to achievement movement -- powerfully conveys the film's emotional content. The director is aided by contributions from cinematographers Ebraheem Ghafouri and Mohammad Ahmadi and editors Shahrzad Pouya and Makhmalbaf as well as folk music that flavors the island's scenic locations.
The actors appear to be mostly nonpros, but what eloquent faces they have. Even those in minor roles bring tremendous energy to this awesome landscape of deprivation.
THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
Shooting Gallery
Makhmalbaf Film House
Screenwriter-producer: Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Director: Marzieh Meshkini
Directors of photography: Ebraheem Ghafouri, Mohammad Ahmadi
Production designer: Akbar Meshkini
Music: Mohammad Reza Darvishi
Editors: Shahrzad Pouya, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Color/stereo
Cast:
Girl: Fatemeh Cheragh Akhtar
Woman: Shabnam Toloui
Old Woman: Azizeh Seddighi
Boy: Hassan Nabehan
Husband: Cyrus Kahouri Nejad
Young Boy: Badr Irouni Nejad
Running time -- 78 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 4/9/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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