Iran is known as the Islamic Republic with the restrictive film industry. Women face multiple challenges in different sphere's of life in Iran, their journey in the film industry is altogether different. While men and women both have limited autonomy over creative expression, still the recent Iranian festival was breath of fresh air. Women directors and actors led from the front.
Five of the seven films inaugurated at New Images of Iran Festival unveiled women actors portraying hard-hitting, less talked on, taboo subjects such as war and Shariah laws in the Islamic faith. These films released in Iran and not in western countries.
The shift towards more women participants in film making can be seen from 2006 onwards. Forough Farrokhzad director of the classic 1963 documentary "The House is Black" is one such powerful Iranian filmmaker. Her work sparked a new wave in film making in 1979.
It isn't easy to experiment with your creativity in Iran. For example, under the Islamic Republic’s censorship laws, women must wear veils on screen, even in domestic scenes where in real life their heads wouldn’t be covered. This makes it extremely difficult to project the real picture among its audience. Though, there have been rebels who dared challenge such norms.
If we look at the recent film festival there were three exceptionally edgy, a gripping women-centric cinema that one must look out for:
1. ‘Mothering’
Director: Roqiyeh Tavakoli,
2. ‘Villa Dwellers’
Director: Monir Gheydi
3. ‘Yeva’
Director: Anahid Abad
Comments