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ShareLabonita Ghosh meets Abdoulreza Kahani, whose film will be screened at MAMI
When Iranian filmmaker Abdoulreza Kahani was shooting Adam, his feature film that will be screened at the International Film Festival of Mumbai (MAMI) this week, he was confronted by "a difficult situation". The house the crew was shooting in in Kahani's native village of Neishabour belonged to an old woman. For one scene, Kahani had to reconstruct a grave in the back yard. "The old lady believed that the grave was real, and began to sit by it in a gesture of mourning," says Kahani.
"No amount of coaxing could convince her we were just shooting a film." To Kahani, this "bittersweet" moment was a validation of the ignorance -- and lack of exposure -- of viewers in Iran to meaningful, realistic cinema. "The only things that run well in Iran are fairytale romances or family dramas; that's all people can understand and relate to," says Kahani, 34. "Filmmakers who make more 'realistic', less commercial films are censured for showing Iran's 'negative' face."
It's no wonder that Iran's young filmmakers -- like Mani Haghighi, Samira Makhmalbaf and Rakhshan Bani-Etemad -- prefer to show their work outside their country, mostly at international film festivals. Actually they are practically forced to, says Mehtab Keramati, who plays the lead in Adam. "These are not considered popular films, so there's no space to screen them either."
Less than two per cent of the Iranian films screened at foreign festivals are shown in Iran. Adam, for instance, doesn't fit into any category that would find favour with the government: It's a feature shot like a documentary, it doesn't deal with relationships, young romance or family intrigue, and it doesn't tom-tom the state's achievements. Kahani's story about a village in Neishabour with an increasing population because no one has died in decades, is a metaphor for how some people disrespect life. Then a stranger comes along, and the first death occurs.
Kahani is looking for funding for his next film, perhaps from a foreign producer. He says (in minimal English): "There was a time in Iran when making films was not so difficult. It's not like that now. We are told that we are showing the world the negative face of Iran, and that we shouldn't do that. But these are the films that I find to be more meaningful. And brave."
Keramati adds, "There was a time when cinema in Iran went through an enlightened phase; in fact, it was even ahead of its time." Ironically, the clampdown forced Iranian filmmakers to go global.
That doesn't help filmmakers like Kahani. But he's set his sights on being ranked in the New Wave who he says make "much more important and more political films than I do. They have a truly new vision for Iranian cinema," he says.
Adam, IMAX Wadala, March 9, 7:30pm
