Two-Day Cinematic Tribute with 9 Revealing Documentaries by Iranian Female Directors about Woman’s Social Position in Iran [9 & 10 March 2013]

^{3 per screening / 2,5 (two screenings or more)}

Α two-day cinematic tribute will take place at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation on Saturday, 9th of March 2013 and Sunday, 10th of March 2013. Nine films that are directed by Iranian women and they have as main subject the social position of the woman in Iran. Many of these films are awarded at International Film Festivals and Competitions. With ticket price at 3 per screening or 2.5 for more than one screenings, the Athenian audience will have the opportunity to be introduced, through the art of documentation, as well as the sensitivity of female approach, to the, often quite unknown for the western world, reality of modern woman in Iran. The documentaries will be screened in Persian language with subtitles in English, while the ticket presale has already started.

The Program

• Saturday 9th of March 2013

1st Screening
18:00 Introduction Presentation of the following film (30)
18:30 Iran unveiled and veiled again (13)
18:45 Presentation of the following film (10)
18:55 Tabous Zohreh & Manoutcher (66) [Adults Only]

20:00 Intermission 30

2nd Screening
20:30 Presentation of the following film (10)
20:40 Feminine (70)
21:50 Presentation of the following film (10)
22:00 Rough Cut (22)

• Sunday 10th of March 2013

1st Screening
15:00 Presentation of the following film (10)
15:10 The Code 61 (67)

16:17 Intermission 30

2nd Screening
16:50 Presentation of the following film (10)
17:00 The birthday (102) [Adults Only]

18:45 Intermission 30

3rd Screening
19:15 Presentation of the following film (10)
19:25 Αn angel on my shoulder (52)

20:20 Intermission 30

4th Screening
20:50 Presentation of the following film (10)
21:00 Virgin (52)

21:52 Intermission 10

5th Screening
22:00 Presentation of the following film (10)
22:10 We are half of the people (40)

—–

The films

• Rough Cut (2008)

Documentary by Firouzeh KHOSROVANI
22 min, Persian with English subtitles

The window displays of the Tehran clothing shops catch the interest of
passersby who stop and linger. Gradually, the onlookers meet the stares
of the grotesquely mutilated mannequins, disturbing reproductions of the
female figure. The mannequins, redefined according to the regime’s law,
have become a metaphor for Iranian women’s veiled and covered bodies.
In the 1980s the mannequins disappeared from shop windows altogether,
reappearing only after the war between Iran and Iraq. First the male
mannequins reappeared, followed by the female mannequins, modified by
the manufacturers in order to minimize the feminine characteristics,
like a warning call sent to Iranian women and society, an absurd totem
intended to perpetuate the established order.

Rough Cut is a poignant yet haunting look at mannequins in Tehrans shop windows, which
have inadvertently become a metaphor for the veiled bodies of Iranian
women.

• Iran unveiled and veiled again (2012)

Short Film by Firouzeh KHOSROVANI
13 min, Persian with English subtitles

Making use of archival material from Cinecittà Luce (Italy) and my family
albums, Iran, Unveiled and veiled again, puts on display the story of
Iranian women being covered in veil and uncovered. Before and after the
abolition of the veil in 1936 as well as before and after the mandatory
reinstitution of the veil in 1979 by revolutionary constitution. This is
representative a part of the double identity we have to assume as women
in Iran today.

• Virgin (2009)

Documentary by Tahereh HASSANZADEH
47 min, Persian with English subtitles

This film is investigating on the problems and difficulties regarding the
virginity. How to keep it for Iranian young girls before their marriage?
Also the rules of the Islamic Laws and the rules of tradition in the
Iranian society of today. The women are required to obtain a certificate
of virginity which often leads to the dispute over the validity of the
certificate. This, in turn, induces husbands to accuse their wives, and
wives’ parents-in-laws accusing her parents of not being truthful.

This film has not got the authorization to be screened in Iran.

• We Are Half of Iran’s Population (2009)

Documentary by Rakhshān Bani E’temād
42 min, Persian with English subtitles

Three months before Iran’s presidential elections Iranian women’s rights
activists -consisting of a vast spectrum of different points of view
from religious to secular and ordinary women- are filmed posing their
questions to the ten candidates and three of them discuss their opinions
after watching the film. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, is not willing
to take part in the film or to respond.

By the time the film is finished, three individuals who have taken part in the film are thrown
in prison, falling victim to the massive post-election detentions. This
film sheds light on the reality of the situation of Iran.

• ARTICLE 61 (2005)

Documentary by Mahvash Sheikholeslami
76 min, Persian with English subtitles

A woman, Fakhteh, escaped from the man who had held her captive for two
weeks, but the man did not survive the blow she dealt him. Article 61 of
the Islamic criminal code states: “If, whilst defending one’s life,
honour, chastity, property or freedom against any immediate or imminent
aggression, one makes an action which is an offence [] one will not be
prosecuted and punished.” In the Iranian courts, this rule is
applicable, but is not always applied.

In Article 61, we get acquainted with a number of women who, to protect themselves or their
children, committed a murder. Despite the fact that none of them
wittingly killed her attacker, these women were sentenced quid pro quo
by the court – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Candidly, the
women tell about their lives and the tragic events that landed them in
jail. The lack of legal aid and the impossibility of further appeal put
them in a dead-end situation.

Once in a while, a letter from a desperate daughter or interference by an international human rights
organization manages to postpone an execution or have a woman released.
But these are exceptions. The Evin Prison in Tehran buzzes with stories
of women vainly hoping for protection by virtue of Article 61.

• Tabous -Zohreh & Manouchehr (2004) [Adults Only]

Fiction/Documentary by Mitra FARHANI
70 min, Persian with English subtitles

How can love and sexuality find a way through the myriad of prohibitions
and interdicts in contemporary Iranian society? These are the questions
at the heart of this part-fictional, part-documentary film. The film
starts with a poem by Iraj Mirza which is free of ambiguity; the love in
question is passionate love, right down to its carnal dimension.

The film wants to reveal via the fictional and documentary elements, the
contradiction between a society once so well-versed in combining
culture, Islam and the art of loving, and an environment today whereby a
couple who embrace are forced to ask themselves if they are committing a
grave sin.

• The Birthday (2006) [Adults Only]

Documentary by Negin KIANFAR
63 min, Persian with English subtitles

While homosexuality is considered a major taboo in Iran, as in most Muslim
states, the Koran makes no specific mention of transsexuality -people
who are psychologically oriented to one gender while possessing the sex
organs of another- and after a decree was passed down by the Ayatollah
Khomeni permitting sexual reassignment surgery for transsexuals, the
nation has shown a tolerance for transgendered individuals that’s rare
in the Middle East. A young man is followed in the process of becoming a
woman through a sex-change operation in Iran, up to and beyond his
operation.

• An angel on my right shoulder (2010)

Documentary by Azadeh Bizar Guity
52 min, Persian with English subtitles

This is the story of a twenty years old woman who has lost her two kidneys,
and after eight years of disease she is abandoned by her family. But a
woman appears in her life who takes her in charge, as she is doing for
many others, with the money funded by charitable people who make an
unbelievable trust to this very ordinary woman.

She reminds us that the angels still exist and sit down on the shoulders of needy persons.

• Feminine (2002)

Documentary by Mahnaz AFZALI
70 min, Persian with English subtitles

Public toilettes in a park in Tehran -a group of women neglected and abandoned
by the society and who have no shelter are getting together. In this
place they speak and discharge their minds. These are the stories of
their real life told by themselves.