Much of the meaning of the word “courage” comes to us from abroad. From Ukraine, of course. From Iran too, where citizens revolt against the stifling theocracy at the risk of their lives. Many young people in particular feel ready to do anything to break their chains.
In the front rows, these Iranian women raised and unveiled in the streets, revolted by the death of Mahsa Amini, who died at the hands of the morality police for a veil revealing her wild hair. Men also hold their hands. Tehran, Qom, Shiraz or other cities in the country have never been so inflamed as this fall. Powerful is popular anger. Terrible, the repression. A cry of freedom resounds there, the echoes of which deafen us.
Even the twice Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi flew to the aid of the insurgents at the end of the week, calling on the enlightened minds of all countries to show solidarity in their fights. However, the great director ofA separation and D’A hero had so far shown itself to be rather flowing in the face of the mullahs. A discretion which offered him the green light to enter and leave the country, when his works harvested prizes in Cannes and Berlin. Nourished with great scripts and often exceptional performers, these denounced the regime, but on the sly; sometimes censored, often backed up. In public, Farhadi measured his words for a long time. Like the Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, who passed away in 2016, and who has been wavering for a long time.
It will be easy for us, from the bottom of our cozy cocoons, to reproach anyone for their past compromises. The specter of prison, of torture would set back more than a false brave everywhere. But here is Farhadi suddenly erect. A sign that times are changing. Revolt has been brewing for a long time in this corner of the Middle East, which would seem to many Westerners even more opaque without the strength of its cinema illuminating the complexity of its society.
I went to Tehran in 2006 as part of a film festival, mingling with young people and educated artists who allowed the extent of their revolt to filter through, all doors closed. Forced to be silent in public, they stayed connected to the world at home, argued hard and shared with me rage and
frustrations.
At a private party, I had seen half-naked young girls protesting with their skimpy outfits against the imperative of the veil outside. The wine flowed freely. People were dancing. A singer sang songs from ancient Persia to squeeze your heart. Another world, another Iran. And in front of this rising generation so numerous and lit, floated the impression of witnessing the dawn of its uprising. Better then, however, to be patient. And if the time had now come…
I had also met there the beacon of the seventh art, Jafar Panahi. He will have flown so much to the aid of women and the oppressed in works of strength and commitment, deprived of a poster in his homeland. The filmmaker was part of all the demonstrations against the dictatorship. Since July 11, this militant creator has been serving a six-year sentence in Evin prison with his colleagues and fellow fighters Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.
The director of white balloonfrom Circle and of Taxi Tehran, so long at the forefront of national cinema, banned from working, assigned to residence for acts and remarks of sedition, had been shooting for more than 10 years on the sly under the coat. The regime, fearing his fame, dared not gag him altogether. But he languishes behind bars once again. Treated how? In 2010, Panahi went on a hunger strike to speak out against prison mistreatment, before being released following global pressure.
For a long time, his empty chair will have been enthroned at international festivals, where his films won prize after prize in absentia from the master builder. Symbol of resistance abroad, the face of Panahi, in photo or on video, embodied for us this courage which still makes believe in the greatness of the human being. Mid-September, at the Venice Film Festival, his No Bears, where he staged himself as a beleaguered filmmaker, won the Special Jury Prize. A film presented at the Festival du nouveau cinema on October 6 and 15. Run, hopefully.
Without the fall of the mullahs, how many feminists and dissidents will be killed or imprisoned on the side of the Alborz mountains? Iran had already risen in 1978 against the reign of the Shah, falling, alas, from Charybdis to Scylla when Ayatollah Khomeini took power. Its shadow heroes, its women and its artists will overthrow other tyrants, blowing up the dikes with an irrepressible tomorrow wave.