Film programme 6: Iran

4:10 p.m. | 6: 50 p.m.

I saw Shoush

D: Bahman Kiarostami, Iran 2007, 8 min, without subtitles

Short film based on a poem by Mehdi Akhavan-Sales (1928-1990), one of the most prominent Persian poets. It compares the ancient city of Shoosh (Susa) in South of Iran, formerly a gateway of civilization, to the modern Shoosh, an impoverished city without character.

4:20 p.m. | 7 p.m.

The Anonymous

D: Bahman Kiarostami, Iran 2007, 30 min

The film traces the layered story of a photographer, Jahangir Razmi, whose picture of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard dead squad executing Kurds made furore around the world. The international reaction to the photograph infuriated the Iranian Government, while the images enraged the Kurdish people.

4:53 p.m. | 7:35 p.m.

Re-enactment (Shabikhani)

D: Bahman Kiarostami, Iran 2007, 52 min

Every year during the holy month of Muharram, merchants, truck drivers and carpet salesmen don costumes to re-enact the death of Imam Hossein, the grandson of the prophet. Through this unique theatre the film examines Iranian society, communal mourning and the complex layering of religious representation.

5:50 p.m.

Nayère, les chants de la liberté

D: Mina Saïdi Sharouz, Frankreich, 52 min

What has happened to the women in Iran who once showed such commitment? In ‘Nayère, les chants de la liberté’, woman director Mina Saïdi Sharouz reconstructs the story of her mother, the deceased poet Nayère Saïdi, who symbolised the modern woman in pre-revolutionary Iran, and links her mother’s story with the situation of Iranian activists in the present.

Film Directors

Bahman Kiarostami, born in Teheran in 1978, began cooperating with his critically acclaimed father, Abbas Kiarostami, at a very young age. In his own work, he mainly focuses on art and music and religious aspects of life.

Mina Saïdi Sharouz was born in Iran and has been living in France for 20 years.