A compilation of struggles that women are on the front line of. Amina Maher (courtesy of the photographer)
Omina Maher became famous at the age of 10, when she starred in the well-known film “10” by the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or. After being imprisoned in Tehran, leaving for Malaysia and having to flee from there because of her queer cinema, Maher currently lives as a refugee in Berlin and is working on her first full-length film, which will document her gender adjustment process. Her short and shocking film “Letter to my mother”, in which she testifies about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child, won many awards and screenings.
I sat down with Maher for an interview on the background of the widespread hijab protests in Iran, and ahead of the screening in Tel Aviv of her short film, “Where Does My Friend Live”, at the Gay Film Festival, which will be held at the end of the month at the Cinematheque. Maher knows how to be provocative, and her interviews in the Iranian media caused a stir in her homeland. Still, an interview with an Israeli media outlet is no small thing for her. During the conversation, she repeatedly asked me to mention that she is pro-Palestinian, and asked about the genders in the Hebrew language to make sure that I would translate it in the language of a woman.
We talked about the demonstrations in Iran, which she believes herald the imminent fall of the regime, and about their female dimension. In her eyes, it is not surprising that the hijab has become a symbol of protest. Because “gender apartheid is the axis on which the fascist-Islamic regime in Iran is based”, in other words, she is convinced that the protests will succeed. The war in Ukraine also contributes, in her opinion, to the strength of the Iranian opposition.
Maher told both about the increasing persecution of the filmmakers in Iran and about her escape route, which is not over yet. She spoke about her film, which she defines as auto-ethnographic cinema, and about queers, who symbolically “have to kill their family”, to break up the oppressive family unit.
Maher also repeated the claims of her mother, director Mania Akbari, according to which director Kiarostami abused her sexually, emotionally and professionally during the making of the film “10”. It is worth noting that the allegations were made after Kiarostami had already passed away, and his son denied them in every way.
Against the background of your work, which examines what femininity is, and against the background of the hijab protests, what is the place of the feminist struggle in Iran? Why are women at the forefront now?
“I wouldn’t say that the current protest is female, but that it is a struggle of all the weakened groups in Iran, including LGBTQ people, Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs and Turks. It is true that the LGBT community is still persecuted in Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, but the community has grown stronger in recent years.
“In a deeper way, there is a connection of different struggles here, which drains into a clear demand for regime change. A demand that is currently at its peak, with the majority of the population supporting it.
“The government in Iran has a gender apartheid system, and therefore women are the front line of this protest. The Islamic revolution based itself on the oppression of women, and the regime knows that without the hijab – it will simply crumble. And that is why they are fighting to keep the hijab, as soon as they release The women, the rulers will be thrown out the window, and they know it. The Islamic-fascist regime simply created the women who fight it.”
“Women have the power to change”
But do you think there is a chance for this protest to change anything? The previous rounds – the green revolution, the protests in 2019 – failed.
“I am optimistic. Maybe there will be a respite, maybe there will be a break, but the regime will fall. For 43 years the axis on which the regime rests has been the oppression of women. That is why women have the power to fundamentally change the regime. Yes, there will be violence, a lot – the reports are also unreliable, For every one reported death, ten are killed. I already left in 2018, but in the protests in 2019, which were smaller, they say 1,800 people died. Still, I’m optimistic.
“Usually, the protests were mainly in the five biggest cities: Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Kharaj and Shiraz. This time there are videos from everywhere. Even from small, very religious towns. Even there the people can’t take it anymore, and want to overthrow the regime.
“Besides, there is a lot of solidarity. The fascist-Islamic regime says that if it falls, Iran will break up into five or six countries: Baluchistan, Kurdistan, and such. I wouldn’t mind it at all if the Kurds had their own country, but the most beautiful slogan in my eyes is a women’s protest Singing in Kurdish Persians throughout the country sing in Kurdish against the regime, in solidarity with the minority.
The protests went everywhere. Demonstration of solidarity in Saarbrücken in Germany with the hijab protests in Iran (Photo: Kai Schwart CC BY NC 2.0)
“Another slogan that I really like, in Persian, says something like: ‘Our enemy is here, they are lying to us that it is the United States.’ Putin’s Ukraine is of course terrible, but happily he has changed things.”
Has the war in Ukraine changed Iran?
“Look, the government will not fall on its own, and protests are not enough either. We need more – strikes, and international support. From Biden, from the European Union. Today, the Islamic regime is Putin’s only ally, the only one helping him in the horrific war. And now the whole world is mobilizing in favor of Ukraine, So the United States finally stops being nice to the Islamic regime.
“This is not a new struggle. The Iranian people have been fighting for democracy for 120 years, of which 43 years were under the fascist-Islamic regime. By the way, before the Islamic revolution there were also years when the United States acted against democracy. But this long struggle proves that Iran has real potential for democracy. And that the regime is really nearing its end.”
Memories of Evin Prison
And in all this drama, what is the place of the film people? According to what I know, even before the protests there was a wave of arrests, directors were arrested, and they say that censorship is getting worse.
“Absolutely. Everything is connected to everything – some of the strict censorship laws say that the women in films must wear a hijab all the time, even in a scene where two women are talking to each other at home. The female body is an oppressed space in the cinema as well, the body is being criminalized. Nowadays the government controls films more More than ever, and filmmakers are arrested. Lots of people are leaving. What’s amazing is that stars are also fleeing, celebrities who until a moment ago played on the major channels, who participated in the propaganda.
“But it is important for me to shake off for a moment the lineage of the ‘big names’ of Iranian cinema, all of whom are cisgender men. There is a new generation of queer Iranian women directors, even younger than me – I am already 30 years old. I studied cinema abroad, in Malaysia. I was involved in opposition activities When I was studying in Tehran. I was arrested twice, the second time I was taken to Evin prison, the famous and dangerous prison in Iran. I was not there in the famous wing, for whom they publish support petitions. I was with the poor students. They tortured me, beat me. A few months after the release I left the country, and came to Malaysia Through Dubai. My mother was already a refugee in London at that time, but I didn’t get a visa there, and in Malaysia I had some friends.
Appeared in the movie against her will. Amina Maher as a child in the movie “10”
“Because I left, I am not really involved in the circles of the new cinema. There are new female filmmakers, braver than ever, who, unlike their predecessors, are not ready to accept any censorship. It is a voice that was not heard until six or eight years ago, and I want to see myself as part of it.”
You really create in Europe today, but your films are in Persian. Do you still see yourself as part of Iranian cinema? What is your relationship with the motherland today?
“I don’t even know what the term ‘Iranian cinema’ means. On the one hand, I started filming at a very young age, and through ’10’ I was close to this cinema. But my work is very personal, until now I have done an autoethnography that is based only on my life, so I’m not sure that I took anything from ‘Iranian cinema.’I can mention a beautiful sentence by Sorhab Shahid-Sales, an Iranian director in exile who himself worked in Germany: ‘Home is where I can make films.’
“I can say that I am trying to reach out to people in Iran. I have other family there and a few friends, mainly queer friends, but I am not in contact with many of them. For me, it has to do with queerness: part of queerness is the dissolution of the Dakhan family unit, queerness should ‘kill the family Of them’ in the symbolic sense, that’s what I do in my films. I do deconstruction, learn not to learn (unlearning), decolonize myself, and this of course has an effect on my relationships.
“In the last three years, I participated in more than 100 interviews, seminars, talks. I spoke, also in Persian, about the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of a relative, about my trans identity, about femininity. An interview in Persian at the height of the Me Too movement was broadcast in Iran and caused a great stir and angry reactions. My films do not have a simple political message, but I feel very dedicated and committed.”
“You don’t have to be pro-Israel”
In this context, what is it like to be interviewed for a “local call”?
“I checked carefully who you are and where I am interviewing this time. I am very pro-Palestinian, but of course that does not mean that I accept the propaganda of my regime. I recognize the Holocaust, perhaps the most terrible atrocity that happened. And the fact that I am very pro-Palestinian stands alongside the fact that I I think dialogue is necessary. I am a woman who speaks through her art.
break up the family Photo from “Where does my friend live” by Amina Maher
“Art has a different approach than politics. Politicians need enemies to maintain their power, and simple women do not. This is the line that separates art from politics, the place where they separate.
“I’m against simplistic messages. To be anti-Islamic, I really don’t have to be pro-Israel. It’s intersectional. I learned this from intersectional feminism, which connects my identities as trans, as a refugee who still doesn’t have a passport, as queer, as a woman of color (in the People of Colour).
“Israel also invents enemies. And it is important for me to say this, especially in Berlin. There were days when it was taboo to criticize Israel here. It is difficult to talk in Germany about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, but I feel that it is beginning to change. And I hope that this dialogue will allow us to forget what we have learned , and rebuild.”
Finally, could you tell us a little about the short film you will present at the Gay Film Festival in Tel Aviv, “Where is my Friend’s Home“? I can tell you how much I enjoyed it, and in the same breath also say how hard it is, how surprised I was by its sheer power.
“My starting point is the film of the same name, by Kiarostami, from 1987. He is a ‘great director’, but I want them to know that he abused my mother, Mania Akbari, in every way – stole her films and credits, exploited her, also sexually. The film His is concerned with education: a boy who tries to return a notebook to his friend so that the friend will not be beaten the next day at school. The Islamic revolution begins from childhood: the government understands the power of education, and it carries out brainwashing. So, in fact, Kiarostami’s film is very conservative, because it does not criticize the system this one
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“In the film I am far from Iran, and try to show who we really are. Auto-ethnography is a documentary style that turns the spotlight inward, on the creator. My strength comes from my life experiences, not from the privileges, which I do not have. And in the film, from this place, I try to examine honestly, in radical , purely, a queer attitude towards my body. Honesty breaks the voice that doesn’t allow us to be who we are.
“There are three reasons for my choice of this style. First of all, I have a complex relationship with cinema: I was photographed without my consent, a director who won the Palme d’Or abused my mother, and my mother herself is a director who makes autoethnographic films. So there is this layer. Secondly, Also the process of my transformation and coming out of the closet as trans, which is happening here in Berlin, built a kind of character for me. And besides, I also have an aspiration for catharsis. To empower and heal, to become multiple voices. But I will also say that I intend to stop with the autoethnography. I am now working on a film First full-length, which will document the process of my gender adjustment. But after it, I will continue in other directions.”
Goli Dolev-Hashiloni is a student of global history in Berlin, a film critic and a political activist