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“Over there we will become the family we were,” Iman says at one point when explaining a move to the countryside where he grew up. The tortuous phrasing is a concise statement of conservative purpose: family and state returning to some imagined prior perfect form.”
Nicolas Rapold
“The dissident director received a sentence of eight years in prison, a flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court for public statements, films and documentaries made by Rasoulof, which it considers ‘examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security’. It has followed weeks of pressure on the filmmaker by Iranian authorities to withdraw his film from the festival, with associated actors and crew summoned and questioned by authorities at the end of April, some of whom were banned from leaving Iran.”
Michael Rosser
Mohammad Rasoulof: I wondered how to carry on working and my only relief was that I knew there would be an appeal court, which would take some time. In the meantime, while it went to the second court and was confirmed and they implemented the sentence, it would give me time to finish the film. And that’s what happened.
Luckily, it was also close to the New Year holiday in Iran, which is a two-week holiday in spring and it was only after the holiday when I had finished shooting that it was confirmed that the appeal court confirmed the same sentence. Then I knew I would have very little time before they would actually come and arrest me. So I had two hours to make the decision whether I would stay and potentially go to jail or flee and that’s what I did. In two hours, I decided to leave all my electronic devices at home and to be taken to a safe place before I actually crossed the border and left the country.
Michael Rosser: When did you shoot the film?
We could not shoot continuously. We had a few days and would then stop. It was over a period of three months from late December to March. I started getting the editing done out of Iran, with an editor [Andrew Bird] with whom I had already worked, who was not Iranian. But for the shooting, we probably had 70 days scattered over three months. Post-production took place in Germany.
Why do you make these films that bring you so much trouble?
[Long pause] Maybe I should go and see a psychoanalyst because what matters most to me is my freedom and my human rights. That is the main preoccupation of my life. I love cinema but I would exchange cinema for my human rights because I’m sure that [if] I’m given back my human rights back then I can make films again.”
Mohammad Rasoulof in conversation with Michael Rosser
Daniel Schindel: We know the normal process for a film production, but how does that manifest when you have to do it all in secret? How do you approach someone to produce and do things like casting under these kinds of restrictions?
Mohammad Rasoulof: Well, everything has to happen in a very unorthodox way. Just to give you an example, you certainly can’t seek a producer before you’ve completed the filming, because no producer will come and give you money if they’re not sure that you can actually wrap the shoot. Of course, this is not my first underground film.
And the casting, again, is very complex, and it happens in a different way. This time, it was better than in the past because through the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, society was able to express openly its requests from the state and from the government. And the societal change, of course, also had an effect on the world of cinema, whereby a lot of film professionals decided no longer to work on projects that complied with censorship. For instance, lots of actresses decided no longer to come in front of the camera if they were to wear the compulsory headscarf. So this time around, we at least knew who it was possible to begin a conversation with, because they had clearly expressed where they stood. We chose the cast more or less among the people who’d taken a stance in this regard.
But it wasn’t as simple as just approaching someone from this group and saying, “Look, I want to make this underground film. Will you act in it?” This was a kind of negotiation undertaken by my close friends and collaborators, not me. They’d approach an actor and actress and tell them, “Look, we are working on a short film without permits and it’s the director’s first work. Would you like to take part?” And then if it seemed positive, you’d continue on these lines, like, “Well, it’s not just that we’re filming without a permit, it’s also that women are actually not going to wear the veil in the film, and it’s not exactly a short film.” Then if the actor wanted to know what the story was, we’d give them a one-page synopsis. Now, of course the synopsis was not an actual synopsis of the script, because that was too risky, but it gave a sense of the kind of risks that the film was taking. So it would give an actor a way to decide whether they wanted to be involved or not.
And you understand throughout this negotiation if this candidate is becoming more involved, if the relationship is going strong or if it’s falling apart. If things are falling apart, you can interrupt that relationship without having given away too much. But if the relationship grows stronger and the person is more keen, of course the time comes when they should know everything. But you have to begin these negotiations with a negative outlook or a pessimistic outlook, because it’s not only us being afraid of not giving things away. It’s also the other side thinking that maybe we’re regime agents trying to lure them into a trap. The deeper you go, the more dangerous it becomes for everyone involved. It’s a really lengthy process.
Daniel Schindel in conversation with Mohammad Rasoulof, “How Director Mohammad Rasoulof Made One of the Year’s Defining Films in Secret,” The Interview Magazine, December 3, 2024.
