PRISONER OF : A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH FAMILY HISTORY

RAHA SHIRAZI

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES FOR THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS

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Growing up with political instability has left a lasting imprint on me as a filmmaker. I find myself examining human relationships within political contexts. Exploring sociopolitical issues through my work is a way for me to navigate this territory within myself. As an Iranian Canadian woman, I find these three separate identities combine to create a rich palette of experiences to draw upon in my work. Finding my voice and expressing my ideas through art is not a freedom I take for granted. In the end, my work is a projection of my diverse cultural experience filtered onto the screen.

I set out to make a documentary about an Iranian woman named Marina Nemat, the author of the book, "Prisoner of Tehran: a memoir". My fascination and draw to Marina's story and herself sprung from a personal link to the notorious where political prisoners have been serving time as far back as any living Iranian can recall.

My mother was imprisoned in Evin when I was only one year old. I cannot recall her absence from my life nor did I know about this chapter in her life until I was much older.

When I made the discovery and asked her about Evin, my mother would brush off the experience and the subject and I soon learned that what had taken place during her time there was an ordeal that she was not able to share with me - not for the time being at least. After she passed away my obsession with Iranian politics, the notion of displacement and what goes on behind the bars in Evin prison grew immensely.

iv Finding myself obsessed with the past, my memories, and a revolution that I could never quite understand, I set out to make a film about my mother informed by the experiences of Iranian writer, Marina Nemat, in the hope of finding answers to my own personal history.

v Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my family and friends for their support and participation in this film.

A warm thank you to Ava Shirazi, David Todon, Maya Bankovic, Aram Collier,

Chelsea McMullan, and Cole J. Alvis for their creative contribution to the film.

In addition I would like to thank Professors Tereza Barta, and Laurence Green

for their guidance, and tremendous support.

This Film is dedicated to my beloved mother Parvin Shirazi,

whose courage, strength and love is an inspiration to me everyday.

vi Table of Contents

Abstract iv

Acknowledgement vi

Table of Contents vii

1. A brief History 1

2. In the beginning 4

3. The Notion of Time and Memory 9

4. Challenges 17

5. Women and Iranian Cinema 21

Bibliography 27

Filmography 29

vii 1. A Brief History

"It is a mistaken assumption that nations wronged by history (and they are in the majority) live with the constant thought of revolution, that they see it as the simplest solution. Every revolution is a drama, and humanity instinctively avoids dramatic situations. Even if we find ourselves in such a situation we look feverishly for a way out, we seek calm and, most often, the commonplace. That is why revolutions never last long. They are a last resort, and if people turn to revolution it is only because long experience has taught them there is no other solution. All other attempts, all other means have failed." [Shah of Shahs 27]

The of 1979, also referred to as the Islamic revolution, is the event in which the Shah of , , and his government were overthrown through a series of civil resistance campaigns that erupted in October of 1977 and ended in February of 1979. In April of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini came into power and Iran was declared an Islamic republic. These uprisings were partly secular and partly religious in nature.

During Reza Pahlavi's time, the industrialization of Iran was growing at a rapid rate.

While the country seemed to be progressing swiftly, only a small percentage of its population was on the rise alongside the nation's industrial growth. Even though there is much to be discussed about this time period and the start of this revolution, including Dr.

Mohammad Mosaddegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, his role during the uprising of 1952 and his wish to publicize oil in Iran, which was what had made Iran rich and an asset to the rest of the world; for our purposes we must move forward and take a broad look at the political situation in Iran after The Shah's demise

1 and during the ruling of the Islamic Republic of Iran, more importantly we must take a look at Evin and its history.

Evin detention center was built in 1972 by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and consisted of an execution yard, courtroom, a separate block for common criminals, and for female inmates. It was built to hold 1500 prisoners with another 100 in solitary confinement

This number grew rapidly during the Islamic Republic. During the 1980's, Evin was holding at least 20000 inmates at any given time. Evin, before and after the revolution, was a political prison holding inmates that were believed to be from the opposition and against the government.

No one was allowed to document or photograph inside Evin, and the only way individuals learned about the place was through the testimony of others, who had been inmates there. It is said that rape was used by interrogators in Iran for decades. "During the 1980s, the rape of female political prisoners was prevalent. It was so prevalent that it prompted Hussein-Ali Montazeri, who was Ayatollah Khomeini's deputy at the time, to write the following to Khomeini in a letter dated October 7, 1986: "Did you know that young women are raped in some of the prisons of the Islamic Republic?"[Ali Montazeri, the depute, states the above in a private letter to Khomeini].

Many political prisoners, who survived Evin have, over the years, emigrated and relocated themselves and their families to other parts of the world. Many of these

2 prisoners have written about their experience in prison and most have been the center of controversy. Since there are no complete records of who has served time in Evin, nor any documents that record the events that took place behind its walls, Evin remains a mystery, and only parts of it can be imagined through writings and fragmented memoirs of former inmates.

For female prisoners especially, the shame of rape and torture behind those bars silenced them for the majority of their lives. No one talked, and family members fearing the answers to the question, "What happened to you?" never asked. Everyone sat in silence for years hoping that the passage of time will erase the memories away.

"Women's bodies became a primary battleground for revolutionary ideologues, who believed that the dress, manner, mobility, education, religion, occupation, etc. of women, were clear indicators of a pervasive social and cultural imperialism that had been corrupting society. In this conception, women ultimately became the barometers by which Western infringement was to be measured." [War Against Women 4.]

3 2. In the Beginning

I spent my childhood growing up in Iran during the Iraq-Iran war. I spent most of this time drawing with the pencil and paper my Mom provided, to distract me from the war beyond our apartment walls. My mother was the center of my world. She kept me protected from everything, from the conflict outside and even from her own story.

Unfortunately, I never had the chance to hear the story of her incarceration from my mother before she passed away. I have always wondered what happened to her there, how it shaped her as a person, as a woman, as a mother.

Growing up with a background steeped in politics, war, loss and motherhood, these variables played an integral part in forming my identity. Having learned to use art to express myself as a child, I saw the development of this documentary film as a vehicle for me to explore my mother and It's shared past through the lens of Marina's story.

It was a few years after my mother's death when I read Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir by Marina Nemat. Imprisoned at sixteen and forced to marry her interrogator, Marina immigrated to Canada never planning to tell her story. It was only after the death of her mother, and feeling regretful of having never spoken about her time in Evin, that Marina decided she needed to put her story on paper. She took a creative writing course at the

University of Toronto and, through this experience, was encouraged to pen her best- selling book.

4 I was fascinated with the fact that I share the same Iranian heritage with Marina. Her story had a profound impact on me since it reminded me of the time my mother spent in

Evin prison as a political prisoner when I was a child. Marina's words on the page reminded me that I still did not know anything about my mother's time in Evin.

I was determined to meet this woman, hear her story, and through her, come to understand my own history and my mother's. Upon meeting Marina and realizing there was a strong connection between us, I knew this film could include not only her incredible stoiy and life in the aftermath of this traumatic experience, but also help me understand what happened to my mother. The narrative would not just be focused on

Marina but would also include me, both on and off screen. It would be our journey together.

To some, Marina marrying her interrogator was a betrayal. Marina has been called a liar and a whore, but also courageous and selfless, by the women who slept housed within the same walls as her at Evin prison. Despite the controversy, Marina continued to travel and speak about her book Prisoner of Tehran to audiences around the world. "When I wrote the book and published it, I recognized that I had already jumped off the cliff; once you make that choice, when you jump, there is no turning back." This was how Marina related her situation to me at one of our meetings.

5 For Marina, the ramifications are serious. Her two teenage sons have yet to read the book, and, despite public interest in their mother, her boys are reluctant to discuss the story with her. Although they have attended her book readings, and have heard others reference the atrocities committed against their mother, there remains an awkward tension between

Marina's past and present life. The boys are growing increasingly wary as their mother's popularity and fame is about to explode with the worldwide release of her book this year.

Of course, the complex relationship that Marina had with her two young sons was of particular interest to me, because of my experience with my mother. For me, it would have been a chance to witness an explanation of that horrific event I never had the opportunity to hear from my mother. The film was going to ask pertinent questions, as a parent, like when and how to tell your children about horrible atrocities you have seen and experienced. How do you explain to them the person you once were? As the anger of the Iranian community grows stronger (those on both sides of the controversy), and the curiosity of the West creates a media frenzy, we would see, on camera, Marina's attempt to protect her sons from her past becoming increasingly difficult.

I intended to follow Marina as her popularity increased with the global release of her book. I was trying to contrast Marina's public and private personas, exploring the complex relationship she has with her immediate family. It was apparent that the relationship between Marina and myself was the key to the film. This proved challenging to capture honestly on camera, but I believed it was going to be a powerful examination of the sacrifices that Iranian women make in their battle to be free. Intimate moments

6 1

between Marina and myself would allow for a deep examination of what is at stake for her and me, and many Iranians, in such a journey. I believed we were both willing to put ourselves into the narrative to tell an important story for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for a universal audience.

Unfortunately, what I had hoped and planned for that film never occurred. As my relationship with Marina grew closer, I grew more attached to the idea of Marina's personal story and its connection to my own mother. But as we discussed situations and talked about sensitive subjects, Marina grew more distant from me; simultaneously she was becoming obsessed with her media persona. Her book was adapted into a play and then a feature length film and she started to buy into the lure of celebrity, while the west idealized her more and more everyday. Finally, one day, on the eve of our most intensive proposed period of production, Marina informed me she no longer wished to continue with my project and wanted to cut it out of her life, as her family and agent had advised her to do. Upon hearing this news, I felt tremendous pain and betrayal; it was as though I had lost some one once again.

At first I was not able to understand her decision and could not fathom why a woman who had once said, "you are like the daughter I never had," was now so easily able to kick me to the curb and leave me hanging. But slowly, as time passed, I learned I was searching for answers that did not exist and, in my mind, I had turned Marina into a simplistic answer to a question that is actually quite layered and complex.

7 Subsequently, the story of my thesis film changed and at that point I had to focus the project more on my own story and myself. Doing so I soon realized that in my attempts to find out about Evin and my mother's past, I was desperately trying to keep pieces of my mother alive. At the heart of this project was the fear that my distance from home, Iran, and the loss of my only parent might slowly make me forget who I really am, where I come from, and my longing to fit in perfectly somewhere.

8 3. The Notion of Time & Memory

Four years ago, after my mother passed away, my grandmother gave me a box that contained old super 8mm films of my family. From my mother's wedding to my fourth birthday, all these events were recorded and lived inside each three-minute roll of film.

Realizing how little I knew about my mother's youth, and having almost no recollection of my own first four years of life, I spent the next few months watching the strips of film obsessively. Each time my reactions varied, and with every viewing I saw something new. To this day, I watch them over and over, staring at the images of her, the woman who seems familiar and foreign to me all at once. As I get older, the power they possess to inspire the feeling of longing or loss in me has not seemed to fade. Instead, I watch them and feel overwhelmed by the sense that I am actively grasping at something that is just barely out of reach: a history which I feel is part of me, but I could never really know. Lately I have realized that it is the slight melancholy I feel when I look at them that I have grown to value and cherish. These home movies allow me to sit and wonder about the past from a distance, creating space to imagine the millions of other moments that have passed through the recorded ones I see in front of me. This tension that exists between the past and present is what makes them so beautiful to me.

These short films are not just merely documentations of my family; they are recordings of life in Iran between the years of 1980 to 1987. They document a history of a nation during a difficult time with a distinct perspective. The Iranian revolution of 1979, which

9 declared the end of the Shah's power in Iran and put the Islamic Republic in control, was one of the key events of that era; another was the Iran-Iraq war, supported by the

American President (George Bush) which started in September, 1980 and continued on

until 1988. My super 8mm films were recorded precisely within this period. During this time, people in Iran were being arrested and executed by their own government for political activity and suspicions of uprising against the Islamic regime while, simultaneously; foreign missiles and bombs were landing on their homes.

In one of the Super 8mm films, my family and I are in a remote place far away from the city. My mother (who is filming me playing on the terrace) encourages me to dance for the camera, my aunts and cousins follow and are singing and clapping while I try my best to put on a show for them. While this is happening on screen, I can hear a distant sound - at first it is ambiguous but it gets louder and louder and then it hits you, fighter planes, jets, bombers, that is what you cannot see in the frame. But you can hear them. Their sounds are so over-powering, yet it seems my entire family is oblivious to their presence.

The first time I saw this scene, the sounds were paralyzing, but it did not only have this effect on me; sharing the film repeatedly with other Iranians that lived in Iran during that time period provoked the same reaction of disbelief. In truth, the older these fellow

Iranians were, the more dramatic their reaction. The film brought out memories they had not shared with others, images they had shut off for years. There was something in the peacefulness of my family in direct contrast to the horrible sounds recorded on these short film reels and the results they could provoke.

10 It was these experiences and revelations that first made me think about the possibility of

using these home movies to illustrate a specific event or history within a documentary.

Even though the films of my family, just like many others, were taken to record the

happy moments and events in our lives, they betray such genuine reality in relation to the social construct in which they were recorded. My mother, with her silk dress and red lipstick, holds me in her arms as I wrap my fingers around her gold chain that so mesmerized me. She kisses my head gently and smiles. My grandmother and uncle surround us trying to get me to look into the camera; they laugh, the reel ends, another one begins. The next image is of my mother with a plain scarf wrapped tightly around her head; she wears a plain long sleeve dress and pants too big on her body that cover her from head to toe. She follows me as I try to bounce the ball on the grass, and a guard stands in the far distance with a gun. My mother advises my uncle to shut the camera off,

"Raha is getting too tired," she says. No lipstick, no hair, no smiles; my uncle shuts off the camera. The contrasts in these images display so clearly Iranian life as it was in that era, lived not only by my family, but also by millions of Iranians. The difference between the military/political world and the domestic world is so vivid. Our freedom is confined with in the four walls of our homes.

* * *

11 Our perceptions and emotions are closely related to our memories. Experiences that took

place in the past play a role in how we define ourselves as well as our relationships to one

another and the world around us. Film has the ability to embody time, marking the

passing of time through the aging of its materials, and creating a place for memorable

experiences to occur. The associations we form with images are what make film

significant. It can act as a vessel for our memories and as a signifier of time past while

existing in the present.

My memories of a country that once was like a person or identity that I had once loved,

drives me in the recreation of these memories with the hope that by putting the

fragmented past of my mother back together, I can discover something more tangible

than just mere imagination of what took place.

The Iranian revolution happened thirty-two years ago. During the intervening years,

millions of Iranians left the country hoping for a better future abroad while others, in

Iran, fight for a democratic future for our homeland. As a young Iranian, when I revisit

my past and my country through home movies and old photographs the faint memory of

what once was, in a landscape that now seems so far away, comes rushing back. It is at

moments like this that I long for a place and time where all is well... if only I could find

myself there once again.

Time, of course, seems to heal no wounds and as immigrants who will always remain foreign in this land (Canada), we hope that with each passing year our sense of

12 displacement and longing for home diminishes. Even though, with every passing year, we adapt better to our new home, certain events can make the memories of what once was leave us as dislocated as the first day of our arrival into this far-off land.

In my documentary, the notion of time and memoiy play a significant role. The film takes a look at my past, present, and future as I search for answers about my mother and about my heritage. The various sections in the documentary also reflect my history within my family specifically... and ideally, on a larger scale, a nation. This documentary records events that took place over a calendar year; it begins with the Iranian New Year and it ends a year later with the beginning of another. Throughout the documentary, we are taken back in time through images and footage of Iran, before and after the revolution, and we witness other historical events taking place in my homeland, like how the Green

Movement in Iran took the world by surprise. Thirty years after the revolution, people in

Iran are again marching hand in hand and protesting the political situation, the results of recent elections and fighting to protect their basic rights, the right to vote. Looking at these protests in contrast to the ones in the late seventies, I can see similarities; it is as though history is repeating itself.

For those of us that were outside of Iran during the Green Movement, it symbolized hope and the possibilities of a democratic Iran. For me, everything started seeming possible again. I had set out to go to Iran to explore my mother's past, her time in prison and her life as a political activist. I had hoped that by learning all this I could feel closer to a

13 culture that was slipping through my fingers. Yet, going to Iran proved to be much more

difficult for me than expected, even when I was willing to risk everything. If I were to

return -1, too would be risking imprisonment. It seemed as though getting there was next

to impossible. At the same time there were phone conversations happening with

childhood friends and family friends that I had not seen since I left at the age of eleven.

Ali, a childhood friend of mine, wrote me one night and told me all about the girls and

boys who had taken over the street of Tehran to demand freedom; he told me I would not

believe it, even if I was there to see it

These experiences reminded me of the time when Ali and I were children, when we walked along the Caspian Sea with our parents. My mother sang to us of revolutions, dreaming of a free Iran, and they told us that one-day it would all come true. Ali said to me, "I wish you were here, Raha. You need to be a part of this, you need to see this happen." My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as he spoke and I told myself, I must go, the sense of urgency, the now, the present, had never been more clear. I wanted to be there so badly; it was all that I could think about.

My Generation marched down the streets to finish what our parents started thirty years ago. Their children were protesting in the streets, demanding a free Iran, following their parents' footsteps and finishing their battle. My friends and family in Iran were telling me of their excitement, their fights and how much they wished I could be there sharing in the victories, marching the streets with one another.

14 It is only now, years later that I can see the romantic notion of us longing to re-create the era when our parents marched in the streets fighting for their freedom. I marvel at the naive eagerness I felt then to abandon my life in Canada and go to a place about which I knew so little, in hopes of completing a fight that my mother was a part of thirty years ago. I am not tiying to say that Iranians that participated in the uprising in Iran during the

Green Movement were romanticizing their fight. On the contrary, they were brave and fearless, fighting for what they believed to be true, putting their lives on the line to fight for freedom and basic human rights. But those of us abroad, like me, in particular, allowed our hopes and anxiety for the freedom fighters to become tangled up with our dreams and diluted desires. I thought to myself, maybe this means I can soon pack my bags and go truly home or maybe, if this continues, I should go there and support the fight and take part in bettering the future of a country that was once all I knew.

When I attended the Green Movement protests that happened in Canada in support of those fighting in Iran, I felt torn - there was so much I did not understand. But on the other hand, I saw so much hope in the eyes of the young and old. It was difficult to feel connected, yet I saw in those eyes what I had been longing for, a connection, and a cause to believe in and fight for.

Ahmadinejad's government arrested thousands of people. They convicted and hung hundreds of youth; people of Tehran, , Yazd, Esfahan, Shiraz and many other cities were given curfews. No one was allowed to be outside after 8 pm. The protests slowly

15 faded away, and while there were small bursts of them here and there, the regime stayed in power and Ahmadinejad never left.

The Embassy refused to look at my papers, or even try to issue me a new passport, and I did not have my Father's permission and even if I did it was bad timing, they said.

I never went to Iran. I do not think I ever can, until something changes. The Green

Movement, my documentary, and the journey that I went through in trying to discover my mother's past through Marina Nemat have now become a memory. It all happened recently, but everything is slowly turning into fragments of events that I can only recall here and there.

16 4. Challenges

"It is in this space, that which lies outside of our rational understanding of our surroundings, that the imagination enters and we can begin to question our accepted notions of reality. In the context of this discussion, it is in this space where we can begin to question the potential for time to exist outside of a linear progression. In place of our conventional reading of time, we access an emotional reading of time, that which is shaped by the intensity of human perception. In this state, we can imagine a place where past, present and future time is synchronized." [From W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz 85.]

As stated before, my thesis film started out with hopes of focus on Marina Nemat as main character and through her story I had hoped to better understand my own family history.

After Marina backed out of the project, I was forced to think of how to re-imagine and finish this documentary, and in which direction to take its narrative. I had set out to make this film so that I can learn more about my own mother and her past. I tried at first to speak with family members and interview them, as replacement for Marina, but soon realized that by doing so I was putting them in a very uncomfortable situation. My grandmother had already experienced so much loss, that to ask her to sit in-front of the camera and speak about her daughter and her time in Evin was an impossible task for her, and an impossible request for me to make. There was so much pain, so much anger that could not be channeled which sat still in the pit of her stomach, making her unable to communicate with me.

I had to rely on myself alone to carry out the rest of what the story demanded, and I wasn't very skilled at giving interviews, nor was I very gracious in front of the camera;. I would fidget, and get nervous and laugh all the time, because I was so aware of the presence of this object that constantly followed me and filmed me. As a filmmaker, from

17 that point on, I constantly panicked about the direction of the story, and where it was going. I had gone from being the observer to being the observed, focus of my own film.

Was my story interesting enough? Why should anyone care? There are thousands of

Iranians out there, that have experienced similar suffering, so what is unique about what I have to say?

When the Green Movement gathered momentum, I thought I was being handed the answers to my narrative queries, and thought: "here is my chance, the direction in which the film will now go is linked to the story of the Green Movement". I had always wanted to go back to Iran, it was my mother's dying wish to have her ashes scattered in the

Caspian Sea, and I could accomplish both, with the camera rolling; maybe by doing so I would also find peace. Five years have passed since my mother passed away, and still the wound is as fresh as the first day; I was searching for ways to make it heal and this film had become my way.

I did recognize my advantages too: I had no political agenda, and I had no intention of making a film that was made for a "western audience", like Marina's book, and works by many other Iranians who make films about Iran not for Iranians, but for the "other". I wanted to make a film that was genuinely personal to me, a film in which I was able to find some answers; but caught in the midst of the process, I did not think it all through, I rushed and acted with impulse. Worrying about too many contributing factors, time was of the essence, and at that moment it was as though I was racing against the clock. I got

18 married to go to Iran, but did not realize that in order for my marriage to be acknowledged, my father's permission was needed, and without his consent the marriage was invalid.

The film lacks a clear climax because even though so much happened in those two years of my life, I was meandering and nothing really became of all those dramatic incidents.

In one-way or another it all emerged as a series of disappointments. This woman, Marina, to whom I grew so close and seemed to be so fond of me, just left me with no goodbyes.

A marriage that was supposed to help me go back to Iran proved fruitless on that front, and a revolution that was supposed to bring down a dictatorial government, putting an end to all of our exiles, died out quickly.

The depression that followed me through and after this film was unbearable. I was unable to look at my footage and even contemplate making a film for a year after I had finished shooting, because I did not have the strength to go back and look at all that had disappointed me. In this way. Perhaps the film had become too close to my own life, too personal. However, after the passage of time, and after I had the chance to watch all the material, and take in what had accrued in the past three years of my life, I was ultimately able to recognize that I was afraid of forgetting someone that had given me life and loved me so unconditionally. My dreams, my obsession, and my endless seeking of answers were all only ways in which I wanted to make sure that my mother herself does not become merely a memory lost in time; I was so afraid of her image becoming only that

19 which I could see in the super8 films, that I had spent all this time making sure she does not fade.

The work I managed to complete on this documentary I came to realize was also part of a series of projects that I had to tackle as a filmmaker, to make peace with my own inner demons. I have always made work which is personal to me, from my fiction films, to my documentaries. I have always told my stories through my own experience, and have written and made films about things that I know. This thesis documentary is the most personal of my works, as it is based and focused on my life and me. There was much that

I learned though the process of making this film in relation to myself as a person and as a filmmaker. The process of completing this film has shown me my strength and my weaknesses, and in the end I feel as though it has only made me a better filmmaker, and refined my abilities in making documentary films.

20 5. Women & Iranian Cinema

The role of women in Iranian cinema, both before and after the revolution, has been scarce and uncommon. It has only been in the years after the revolution that women have been able to find their strength and voice behind the camera. In a country where filmmaking undergoes serious censorship, and images of women are so incredibly controlled, it takes a lot of creativity and imagination to make a film which is approved by the censorship boards' structure and still tell the story of oppression, and second class citizens (women) in an interesting and critical manner.

Before moving forward, there is an interesting aspect of the role of "the woman" in

Iranian cinema, which I hope to briefly discuss. It should be noted that even though what

I am going to talk about takes a look at Women and their representation in front of the lens (i.e. actors) it is crucial to understand the perspective of a male dominated society towards women in order to understand the difficulties that a female Iranian filmmaker faces in order to achieve her goals. When her image is so controlled in front of the camera and is always portrayed as a passive character taking orders from men and being nearby to serve them, her challenges in real life, for example wanting to take part behind the camera as a voice in the industry, are tremendous.

Iranian Cinema started to take shape in the 1930s in a very sparse fashion. Productions cost was high and the proper equipment was not readily available and so the few films

21 that were made were produced in India at very high costs and almost never made a profit

since the audiences preferred the films that came from America.

In the mid 1950 a group of male producers who were still active in making films started

what is known as film farsi,

"A genre of lumped-cabaret films that gave their name to the period. Seeing the popularity of semi-musical films imported from Egypt and India, these Iranian producers borrowed sounds and dance scenes from cabaret life and used them to spice up their films with sex appeal and dancing women." [The New Iranian Cinema 256.]

Seeing how successful this was with audiences, which consisted of Men, suffering sexual deprivation because of traditional cultural practices. Their simple formula for success was to put on the screen a few female faces with the type of beauty that appealed to the

particular class of filmgoers, sexually-deprived-young men, and add good looking macho male protagonists who represented no particular class but matched the fantasies of these penniless youth who went to see these films. These types of films and this general image of the female character was the only one that could be seen on screen until the late 1960 until the new group of intellectual filmmakers entered the business and started to change the form of Film Farsi. Qeysar by Massoud Kimiai was the film that changed the face of

Film Farsi and opened the doors for new generation of filmmakers to tell their stories.

Even though this significantly reduced the amount of Iranian Cabaret films being produced, films like Qeysar also did not state the truth about the image of the women in society or their struggles as present at the time. While women were fighting to work their way to equality in their homes and at work, in film the representation of Iranian women

22 had gotten divided into two types of characters, the whore and the virgin, both of which were always portrayed passively in the background. Even though in Qeysar the films' protagonist comes back to his hometown to honor the rape of his beloved sister and defend the family name, the film could have easily been composed without the presence of any of the female characters.

"In an attempt to appeal to an intellectual audience, the New Wave films assumed a posture of confronting vulgarity and, by an insidious piece of cultural fraud, threw women off the cabaret stage and into the attic." [Chase Dolls and Unchaste Dolls 220.]

The reality of the women of that era was far from all this. An increasing number of young women, some even from traditional backgrounds, were eager to advance their social status to receive higher education and to enter the labor market and in some cases demanded to be admitted to some of the traditional strongholds of men such as the army and higher levels of political and administrative decision-making. The prominent filmmakers of the post Qeysar period totally ignored these women, who were battling in the social arena to break out of the prison of antiquated and retarding traditions. Taking a long step backwards, they returned Iranian women to the conditions of 30 years before.

"No doubt it was during those years that the image of woman as a creature of corruption and immortality took shape in society's unconscious, to manifest itself later in political developments." [Politics and Cinema in Post Revolutionary Iran 105.]

Bear in mind that even though some of the women, who joined the ranks of the revolutionaries in the late 1970's, wore the headscarf as a tactical move to demonstrate

23 their opposition to the Pahlavi regime, they had no intention of losing the little they had gained in the form of improvement in their social rights. They were well aware that to many of their fellow revolutionaries, women who followed the Western mode of dressing could only be the supporters of the unintelligent and unreliable screen prototypes.

I should add, however, that there were a few Iranian films, such as The Crow and Tara's

Ballad, and the films directed by Beyzai, that depicted women in a completely different light. These works however, were never put on public show; therefore their audiences were few and far between. In Tara's Ballad, a rural widow has sufficient authority to guide a village; in The Crow, the heroine of the film is a teacher at a school for disabled children, with much greater force of personality and ambition than any of the men around her.

"By the time of the revolution, Iranian cinema had granted recognition only to the chaste and unchaste dolls. With the victory of the revolution, many of those who had despaired of any improvement in the content of Iranian film industry were now able to hope that the purge of the vestiges vulgarity from Iranian film industry would make the environment receptive to true artistic works, and importantly, would offer a realistic portrayal of Iranian women on the screen." [Chaste and Unchaste Dolls 225.]

Needless to say, the former never happened; unfortunately for women in the film sector, as in many other areas, all the sins committed by the fallen regime, as well as the output of vulgar filmmakers, were put on women's shoulders, ignoring the fact that women themselves had been the main victims. Women were now to pay the penalty by being banished altogether to the kitchen or the attic.

24 "When women did appear in post-revolutionary Iranian films, they were neutral creatures engaged only in the household chores, sitting by the samovar and feeding fathers, husbands and young sons; all of them ordered them about." [Location and Cultural Identity in Iranian Cinema 164.]

For the past thirty-three years, after the Islamic revolution, women who were banned from cinema all together slowly started to find their way back into Iranian cinema. This time they gradually made their voices heard by being present behind the camera. They announced their presence by working in such roles as assistant directors, designers, stage managers, reporters, and documentary-makers; this however has not been an easy task.

Even though the international community has taken notice of post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema for many years, it is only recently that female Iranian filmmakers have been able to make their voices heard on an international scale. Today, Iranian films have risen to the level of international acceptance, and have adopted a different approach, with an attitude to women that is far more progressive than attitudes prior to the revolution. The new approach allows Iranian women to challenge representations of their place in society.

These women consist of those who live in Iran, for example, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, with such works as Nargess, The May Lady, and The Blue Scarf, Tahmineh Milani's The

Two Women, and Samira Makhmalbaf s Seeb, as well as women who are of the Diaspora like Maijane Satrapi, Maryam Keshavarz, and others. The latter, even though residing outside of their native land, always identify themselves as Female Iranian directors and

25 their work reflects their nationally in one form or another. Their identity as female filmmakers is directly linked to their identity as Iranian women. With that much history, it is hard to image any female Iranian artist whose work is not influenced in one way or another, by their history and struggles.

As for myself, as previously mentioned, being an Iranian woman is integral in how I perceive and am perceived by the world. It is where I come from, where I was born,

Persian is my mother tongue, and even though I might never go back to Iran, or make a film on its soil, my work, despite where it is made, will always carry the voice of the female Diaspora Politics, displacement, and being an Iranian woman, consciously or subconsciously will be present in my future work, as it is in my past and current films.

Veiled or unveiled Iranian women in the areas of culture and art are working hard to make their voices heard; they are gradually breaking out of their restrictive shells, to declare their presence everywhere, and I am proud to be part of this movement.

26 Bibliography

Hamid Algar, Islam and Revolution. Berkley: Mizan Press, 1984.

Hamid Algar, The Roots of the Islamic Revolution. Markham: The Open Press (Holdings) Limited, 1986.

Tar a Bahrampour, To see And See Again. New York: Farrar, Straus, And Giroux, 1999.

Homi K Bhabha,. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.

Pierre Biilard, L 'age classique du cinema francais. Paris: Flammarion, 1995.

Maziar Behrooz, "Reflection on Iran's Prison System Ehiring The Montazeri years (1985- 1988)," (paper presented at the Iranian Studies Group at M.I.T, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 1-5 2007).

Hoseein Ghazian, "Politics and Cinema in Post Revolutionary Iran 105," Iranian Cinema a Brief History (2006): 100-125.

Ziba Mir Hosseini, "Negotiating the Politics of Gender in Iran: An Ethnography of Documentary," Iranian Cinema a Brief History (2006): 238-254

Richard Tapper, The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2002.

Shahla Lahiji, "Chased and Unchasted Dolls: Women In Iranian Cinema since 1979," Iranian Cinema a Brief History (2006): 215-227.

Nasrin Rahimieh, "Location and Cultural Identity in Iranian Cinema, 2006," Iranian Cinema a brief History (2006): 160-187.

27 Farzaneh Milani and Hamid Dabashi, Iranian Studies: Journal of the Society for Iranian Studies. Boston: Bosworth Printing Company, 1985.

Heshmat Moayyad (ed). Stories From Iran. Washington, D.C: Mage Publishers, 1992.

Asghar Schirazi, The constitution of Iran: Political and the Sate in the Islamic Republic. London and New York: I.B Tauris, 1997.

Ryszard Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs. New York: Vintage Books, A division of Random House, 1986.

Samira Mohyeddin, "Iran's Islamic Cultural revolution: Cultural Authenticity, Revolutionary Ideologues And Women As Makers of the Nation" (paper presented at the Iranian Studies Group at M.I.T, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 1-5 2007).

Hamid Nafisi (ed). Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Marina Nemat. Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir. New York: Free Press, A division of Simon & Schuster, Inc, 2007.

R. Radhakrishnan, Nationalism, Gender, and the Narrative of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1992.

Richard S. Randall, Censorship of Movies: the Social and Political Control of Mass Medium. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz. London: Penguin Books, 2001.

28 Filmography

Battle of Chile (Patricio Guzman, 1976)

Beyond the Clouds (Phil Agland, 1994)

Blood-rain (khunbaresh, Amir Qavidel, 1359/1980)

The Blue Scarf (Ru-sari Abi, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, 1373/1994)

Boycott (Baykot, , 1364/1985)

Children of Divorce (.Bachehaye-Talaq, Tahmineh Mllani, 1368/1998)

Close-Up (Nama-ye Nazdik, Abbas Kiarostami, 1368,1985)

The Cow (Gov, Daryush Mehrjui, 1348/1969)

The Crow (Kalagh, Bahram Behzai, 1348/1969)

The Emigrant (Mohajer, , 1368/1990)

The May Lady {Banu-ye Ordibehesht, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, 1376/1998)

Nargess (Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, 1370/1992)

Qeysar (Massoud Kimiai, 1348/1969)

Tara's Ballad (Cherike-ye Tara, , 1357/1978)

Two Women {Do Zan, Tahmineh Milani, 1378/1999)

29