Supriyo Sen, an independent filmmaker from India, attended the Perm Film Festival in September 2022. In Russia, Sen met Iranian film scholar Leila Hosseini who requested the former to visit her country and to share his experience with the Iranian documentary filmmakers. Since the 1980s, Iran has presented countless films that are linguistically unique and free of Western influence. Directors, like Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Dariush Mehrjui, Majid Majidi and contemporary Asghar Farhadi, have enriched Iranian films with their creativity and superb story-telling ability. Hence, Sen did not hesitate to accept Hosseini’s invitation.

Next day, Sen discovered that Hosseini was somewhat worried. She told the Indian filmmaker that she failed to contact her relatives as the Internet service was off in Iran. She also informed Sen that anti-hijab protests rocked the West Asian nation after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died in a hospital in Tehran on September 16 (2022) under mysterious circumstances. The Morality Police of Iran, strictly abiding by religious dictums, had arrested Amini for allegedly not wearing a hijab in accordance with government standards. The Law Enforcement Command of the country issued a statement, saying that she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma before being transferred to a hospital. However, eyewitnesses, including women who were detained with Amini, claimed that she was severely beaten and that she died as a result of Police brutality.

Sen realised that it would not be possible for him to visit Tehran, that time! Upon his arrival in India, he started monitoring the situation in Iran through the Internet. He came to know that the people of Iran were fighting for ‘Zan, Jahan and Azadi‘ (Women, Life and Freedom). Sen failed to recall when women found their place in anti-government slogans in Iran for the last time. Men and women from all walks of life had joined the 1979 uprising against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi‘s (October 26, 1919 – July 27, 1980) autocratic regime. The Islamic fundamentalists seized power in Iran after the fall of the Shah, and declared a war against women. They introduced new laws that started oppressing women by curtailing their rights and making them second class citizens. The fundamentalists also introduced the Hijab Law, apart from lowering the age of marriage for girls, restricting their Right to Education, and barring women from participating in the Judiciary and Politics. Wearing a hijab became compulsory for girls above nine years of age in public.

Sen was surprised to receive flight tickets and a visa from the Organising Committee of the Iranian Film Festival at a time when the country was going through a political turmoil. Upon his arrival in Tehran in November 2022, the Indian filmmaker discovered that huge images of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (born Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi; May 17, 1900 – June 3, 1989) and Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born April 19, 1939) covered almost all the parts of the capital city. He further noticed that women of different age groups were roaming on streets without covering their heads, ignoring the government’s diktat. Sen realised that the mentality of Iranian women changed a lot in the past couple of months.

When Sen reached the festival venue as one of the juries, he found that women of different age groups were managing the entire event under the strict supervision of male government officials. He further noticed that Maria Khubani, the coordinator of the master-class, refused to shake hands with him at their first meeting. In the presence of government officials, Khubani told Sen: “Handshaking with men is against the norms in our society.“

Sen wrote an article in Kolkata-based Bengali-language broadsheet Anandabazar Patrika on January 9, 2023, mentioning that although the Iranians treated their foreign guests with great hospitality, a vigilance was also going on simultaneously. He further mentioned that Security Police, clad in black attire, were roaming on streets, waiting for victims. Sen came to know that the concerned authorities shut down universities in Tehran because of air pollution! However, the main aim of the move was not to allow students to unite. The government also imposed restrictions on the usage of the Internet, as the form of protest was different in Iran in 2022. Instead of staging organised and pre-planned protests, the Iranians suddenly gather at a place, raise anti-government slogans and attack government properties.

According to Sen, Iranians have stopped trusting even their own shadows, as they are always surrounded by secret agents. It is the natural outcome of living under a dictatorial regime. In November 2022, the Iranian Police arrested Taraneh Alidoosti, the actress of the Oscar-winning 2026 film ‘The Salesman‘, for one of her posts on social media. Many have chosen a gentle and creative path of protest in recent times. While noted actress Katayoun Riahi shared her picture on social media after taking off her hijab, Niki Karimi announced her cessation of all creative projects.

In Iran, Sen watched a number of Iranian films, some of which are on women’s lives and made by women. One of them was ‘Ma’am Sukhu’s House’. The story is about Madam Sukhu, the manager of a girls’ drug rehab centre, where inmates struggle with addiction and social restrictions. Girls are shown in normal clothes, without any veil, in this movie. The way female characters are depicted without hijabs to maintain accountability to the documentary film is tantamount to a silent revolution. ‘The Three Nineths Thousandth‘, too, highlights the dichotomy of Islamic fundamentalist society. This movie narrates how members of the Islamic State abducted the girls of the Yezidi tribe of Iran in 2014 and turned them into sex slaves. They gave birth to multiple children as a result of continuous rape. Some of these girls, along with their children, risked their lives to escape and took refuge in refugee camps seven years later. Unfortunately, the Yezidi leaders refused to accept the mothers, as well as their children, because those children were fathered by the enemies. In this film, there are three female characters who directly confront with the men of their society in order to save their children.

Jafar Panahi‘s film, made while in prison, tells that the people of Iran have conquered fear. One can describe this as a secret prediction of the rise of a new society.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das