“We must tell what is happening in Iran”urges exiled actress Golshifteh Farahani, telling AFP of her admiration for a generation of protesters “beautiful, feminine and with their hair in the wind, just asking for freedom”.
The actress never leaves her phone where the news of the deadly repression of the demonstrations has rained since the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police in Tehran for having broken the dress code of the Islamic Republic, including providing veiling for women.
The one who had been careful, in fifteen years of exile, to comment directly on Iranian policy, now relays news from the front daily to her 14 million subscribers on Instagram.
“I never really talked about politics, but this event triggered something very carnal, visceral”entrusts the actress, known as well in Hollywood at Jim Jarmusch (Paterson) than in French cinema.
“We must not only translate the words that come from Iran, we must translate the cultural subtleties”to raise awareness and get governments to move, she continues.
In France, the country of which she obtained the nationality, “there is confusion” around the demonstrations, fueled by fear “Islamophobia”she regrets. “It’s not a fight against religion, Islam, or a judgment on the veil: it’s just the freedom to choose to wear it or not”.
The actress, who was the first Iranian to play in Hollywood since the 1979 revolution, in State lies by Ridley Scott, also regrets “the silence of the great American feminists” around Iran.
Coming from a family of artists, Golshifteh Farahani had to leave everything and flee Iran to take refuge in France at the age of 25, after appearing without a veil in the United States. Today, she continues to salute the courage of a new generation of demonstrators.
“We have seen a lot of mobilizations in Iran for 43 years and the beginning of the Revolution, a lot of deaths in the street”, she continues. But “This time it’s different”.
“We are the children of the Revolution, we were born during the war, we are a burned, traumatized generation of survivors. We were afraid, but this generation is not afraid, not ashamed”.
“To be able to be in the street without a veil, I had to shave my head”she says. “I managed to be free in Iran but by killing my femininity, I thought that being a girl would always be an obstacle”. “But this generation, they want to keep their hair long and not wear the veil.”
How to reconcile her daily life as an actress and the flood of newcomers from Iran? “It’s the absurdity of my life, that while hundreds of young people are dying in Iran, I’m here promoting the film A romantic comedy”, with Alex Lutz (in theaters in France on November 16).
But “symbolically for me, it means that no one ever manages to take the laughter, the dance, the joy, the music and the art from us” : “these people can survive through humor”greets the actress who tastes “black irony” of certain posts of protesters on social networks.
Exile is heartbreaking, and if “a large part of Iranian youth is outside Iran, we are all together”she wants to believe. “It is not because we leave our parents’ house that we no longer belong to the family”.
“We belong to Iran forever, even if it is difficult, because they are in the battle, while we are not dying”, adds the actress. Who entrusts often enrage “not being able to do anything” by scrolling through the news on social networks.
The Cinémathèque française lent its support on Tuesday evening to the demonstrations against the regime in Iran during a moving evening of mobilization marked by the screening of‘No Bears (“No Bears”) by Jafar Panahi, imprisoned since this summer. “This evening is a message for those who continue to fight against a regime that has the sole purpose of subjugating women”launched director Costa-Gavras (Z, The confession), at the head of the Cinémathèque, before the screening.
Today, “we have access to a lot of images. Images full of hope and anger”underlined the Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, also present, who paid tribute to Masha Amini, whose death triggered the wave of demonstrations in Iran, violently repressed.
In response to these remarks, the hundreds of spectators present at the Cinémathèque stood up and gave the finger of honor, a gesture seen during demonstrations against the Iranian regime, before chanting in Persian the slogan “Woman, life , freedom”.
Back in pictures on the exceptional evening “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which was held yesterday at the Cinémathèque, in support of the Iranian revolt and in the presence of the three speakers: Faeze Karimpour, Chowra Makaremi and Sepideh Farsi. ✊ pic.twitter.com/eZ59ZU17XQ
– The Cinematheque (@cinemathequefr) October 12, 2022
In addition to the screening of Jafar Panahi’s film, awarded at the Venice Film Festival in September and showing his fight against censorship, the evening was marked by a message from the director, read to the audience. “For us, to live is to create. These are not orders. The hope of creating again is our raison d’être. We are independent filmmakers”wrote Jafar Panahi, 62, imprisoned since July for “propaganda against the regime”.
After being discreet at first, the film industry has gradually made itself heard on the situation in Iran. Nearly a thousand personalities of the 7th art, including stars like Léa Seydoux, Isabelle Huppert and Dany Boon, called at the beginning of October to “support the women’s revolt in Iran”, in a grandstand. A series of actresses, including Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Adjani, cut a lock of hair in solidarity with the struggle of Iranian women, in a video later posted on Instagram.