“It’s been more than 40 years” that the resistance to the mullahs “continues”, says Iranian dissident director Sepideh Farsi, who pays tribute in “The Mermaid” to the resilience of her people through another “important chapter” in their history, the Iran-Iraq war.
In competition at the Annecy festival and in theaters on June 28, Mermaid, the first animated film by Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi follows, between fantasy and realism, Omid, a 14-year-old teenager who stayed with his grandfather in Abadan, capital of the Iranian oil industry besieged by the Iraqi army in 1980. Spotting a “lenj” (traditional boat from the south of the country) which he will make his ark, the boy will try to evacuate the inhabitants of his city, resisting in their own way to the invader, as well as to the new standards imposed by the mullahs in power since the 1979 revolution.
“Largest war, after that of Vietnam, of the second half of the 20th century“, the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)”is an important chapter in the history of Iran and also in my life“, explains the one who, born in Tehran in 1965, was practically the age of Omid when the conflict broke out.This is truly a turning point in the lives of all Iranians“, she recalls during a meeting organized in May with AFP in her Parisian residence.
“The regime has always monopolized the narrative of this war”
“The siege of Abadan fascinated me for a long time“, adds Sepideh Farsi, taken by her father to this cosmopolitan city when she was “very small“.”It is extraordinary that people, civilians, have decided to stay to resist an enemy, practically empty-handed“, for eight months.”It’s a bit like what we live with the Ukrainians in another way“.
Gold, “the system of government (of the mullahs) has always monopolized the narrative of this war“, when he used “the alien enemy to truly cleanse society of all dissent and opposition“.”It is also important to give“the version of the people, of the eyes in particular”da frail boy (performed by a female, Mina Kavani) who is not the superhero“, or Elaheh, an artist inspired by various Iranian divas deprived of the right to sing in public.
Self-taught filmmaker of the intimate, the director of the documentary Tehran without permission and movie Red Rose To “immediately thought“that animation would be the art best suited to his project, matured over 8 years and materialized with the help of the designer Zaven Najjar and the screenwriter Javad Djavahery. It is difficult, in fact, to reconstruct the “puzzle“from a city totally destroyed during the war and where she has not been allowed to set foot since 2009 because of her”passive with the regime“. Before coming to study mathematics in France in 1984, Sepideh Farsi was notably arrested at the age of 16 for having hidden a 19-year-old dissident, found at her home and then executed.
A regime that “kills its children” and “rapes its youth”
In a column published in January in The worldshe called on the West not to address the leaders of the Iranian regime, who “kill his children” And “violates his youth” For “quell the revolt“, since the death in September of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police for violating the dress code of the Islamic Republic.
In Mermaid, a young woman removes her headscarf to treat an injured person, arousing fear in Omid. A scene imagined long before the events to which it echoes. “Hair becomes a weapon that can cause panic, that’s what’s happening today in Iran. The women resist by removing the headscarf, (…) dancing against live ammunition“.”It’s a touching coincidence that we wrote that“. This shows that he “there is a continuity in this resistance“, which has manifested itself in successive waves since 1979 in the face of “a monstrous diet“. His fall “takes time“but the current repression shows that”he is desperate“, believes the filmmaker.