Iranian women filmmakers fight oppression

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, generations of women filmmakers in Iran have explored their country through their works – at times with a bold and critical look that has forced them into exile.

They follow in the tradition of poet and film director Forugh Farrokhzad, who in her 1962 documentary short film "The House is Black" showed how social criticism can be both poetic and effective as it looked at the treatment of people suffering from leprosy.

Pegah Ahangarani was essentially born in the Iranian film industry. The 38-year-old's mother is director and producer Manijeh Hekmat, and her father is also a producer. Although Ahangarani is best known as an award-winning actor, for the last 15 years she's been dedicated to making documentary films.

Working through trauma

Ahangarani has been living in exile since 2021 and doesn't know when she'll be able to return to Iran. Her last short documentary film, "I Am Trying to Remember" from 2021, is about her own family history and that of her country during mass killings of political prisoners in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was seen as too critical by the Iranian regime.

The short film essay, which is currently being shown by The New Yorker magazine, is told in a highly personal manner, and includes people's pictures taken from family photo albums and other powerful visual messages. In the film, she uses strong images to show how the memory of those who rebelled and then disappeared was erased – and how families like hers overcame the pain of such disappearances. Such traumas run through generations in Iran.

Her generation tried to cooperate with the authorities, but that failed, Ahangarani says. She admires the young people who are now unafraid to take off their headscarves, cut their hair and protest on the streets, despite the risk of death.

"My generation, which is now between 35 and 40 years old, grew up in the Rouhani era, a reform time. We believed that kind of reform would help us, but it wasn't true. Now, the younger generation says 'Enough is enough … We want something different'. They are resisting and they are going to the streets and getting killed, but they return to the streets. They inspire us to say, OK, maybe it is enough now."

Ahangarani has also taken cues from the legendary Iranian filmmaker Rakhshan Banietemad, with whom she has worked before. Banietemad belongs to the revolutionary generation and is one of the country's most important female directors. She interviewed young Iranians for her 2002 documentary film "Our Times", about women's political involvement in the 2001 Iranian presidential elections.

Banietemad's fame is due not only to her international success but also to her choice of subjects. She often focuses on underprivileged characters, showing their strength. Like other female filmmaking pioneers in Iran, such as Tamineh Milani, Niki Karimi or Manijeh Hekmat, Pegah Ahangarani's mother, Rakhshan Banietemad, has made social inequality, especially as it relates to women in Iran, the focus of her movies. 

Return to a brutal past

Iranian filmmakers wrestle with censorship throughout the filmmaking process, whether it be to get the script approved or to get the film shown in cinemas.

Pegah Ahangarani has been interrogated countless times by authorities and even served a month in prison in 2009. "Years after that experience, I am damaged, really. I had so many interrogations, I can't even count them. More than 40. And every time they interrogated me, they caught me by calling from an unknown number. It still shakes me today when I see an unknown number calling my phone," said Ahangarani.

No wonder many of the country's female directors are living in exile. Yet it hasn't stopped them from raising their voices in protest. Filmmaker Shirin Neshat, who lives in New York City, and director and writer Sepideh Farsi are two examples.

It is not just about the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, Neshat said in interview in 2022: "It's the culmination of all the frustration of women who have been forced to veil themselves for 43 years. It's not just about the hijab, as that's just a symbol. There are many educated women, and they realise that they do not have the same human rights as men. Even more so now that this government has gone so far as to murder a young woman just because she showed some hair."

Pegah Ahangarani sees great potential in Iranian documentary films, which are nowhere near as well known abroad as the country's feature films. Here, her generation has an obligation to fulfil: "We have to face the past, all the memories. We have to tell the audience. Tell ourselves. If we want to break this cycle and not allow the government to do something like this again."

The danger of similar things happening again is real: only two months ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei stated that the God of then (1979, editor's note) is also the God of today, Ahangarani quotes. "They have already executed politicians and young innocent people. And they want to do it again."

No to a life unlived

Besides the suffering caused by patriarchal structures, economic misery, wars and terror, it is often the weight of a life unlived that is reflected in the stories. In "16 Women", a personal and timeless film, Bahar Ebrahim, an Iranian-German documentary filmmaker, observed sixteen women from her environment in Tehran, from grandmothers to young driving students, often chance acquaintances: everywhere the barriers are palpable.

And also the tricks used by the human psyche to escape them. To coax some colour from the bare walls of life with pens, so to speak, as in the case of the filmmaker's grandmother, who since the death of her husband has been drawing pictures late into the night, sheet after sheet of paper, finally moving on to the walls of her flat. "I wanted to show the strength, the beauty of these women, despite all the pain they have experienced," says Bahar Ebrahim.

Much hope is invested in the current protests. "I have seen scenes in the streets that have shaken me deeply," says Pegah Ahangarani. "I am so proud of this young generation. I believe with them, the Islamic Republic cannot remain what it was. I have hope."

Julia Hitz

© Deutsche Welle 2023