Danish Documentary filmmakers boycotting Tehran Cinema verite festival.

Threatened on mouth and bread

We have seen the pictures from their cellphones and heard their eyewitness descriptions from the net. Nobody will forget the horrible killing of the young female student.

Right now our Iranian colleagues are threatened on their life, bread – and art. The government in Iran has introduced censorship, and freedom of expression is subdued.

The directors cannot make their films or tell their stories. Intellectuals and artists are imprisoned and tortured for their opinions and pressured to make false confessions.

When art is threatened on its mouth, the media have an important role. This is the moment where they are most needed.

Danish Filmdirectors are against censorship of any sort and want to express their support for the Iranian directors’ boycott of Cinéma Verité, International Documentary Film Festival, which was scheduled to present its third edition in October2009.

The Iranian Filmdirectors have asked us and colleagues around the world for support in this situation.

Let us help them get a voice – distribute this message.

Statement from Danish Filmdirectors

SNF
the Nordic Film Director’s Association

2.FERA
Federation Européene des Réalisateurs de L’Audiovisuel

3.AIDAA

Association Internationale des Auteurs de L’Audiovisuel

http://www.filmdir.dk/

متن فارسی بیانیه

ما تصاویری که آنها با تلفن های همراه اشان گرفته بودند را دیده ایم وشهادت های عینی آنها را در اینترنت شنیده ایم.هیچ کس تصویر وحشتناک کشته شدن آن دختر جوان را فراموش نخواهد کرد.

حالا،زندگی،قدرت و هنر همکاران ایرانی ما تهدید شده است.دولت ایران آنها را با سانسور مواجه کرده و آزادی بیان را از میان برده است.فیلم سازان نمی توانند فیلم های شان را بسازند یا داستان های شان را تعریف کنند.روشنفکران و هنرمندان زندانی شده اند و به خاطر عقایدشان محاکمه و مجبور به اعتراف های دروغین شده اند.

وقتی بیان هنرمندانه وقایع جرم محسوب می شود،رسانه نقش مهمی پیدا می کند.این لحظه ای است که آنها بیش تر از همیشه به ما نیاز دارند.

فیلم سازان دانمارکی مخالف هرنوع سانسوری هستند و می خواهند حمایت شان را از کارگردانان ایرانی که سومین جشنواره بین المللی سینما حقیقت را تحریم کرده اند،عنوان کنند.

فیلم سازان ایرانی از ما و دیگر همکاران شان در سراسر دنیا خواسته اند که در این موقعیت آنها را حمایت کنند.بیایید برای رسیدن به صدای آنها،کمک شان کنیم.

این پیام را منتشر کنید.

Sound of Iran

WILL THE CAT ABOVE THE PRECIPICE FALL DOWN

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

[The following is a guest post from Slavoj Žižek sent to us by Ali Alizadeh who writes, "Apparently the mainstream media has not shown interest in publishing it. Hope that the blogsphere can counteract their tendency." The piece is copy-right free and you should feel free to republish this on your own blog.]

When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down…

In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over. Is something similar going on now?

There are many versions of the events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western “reform movement” along the lines of the “orange” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, etc. – a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution. They support the protests as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic secular Iran freed of Muslim fundamentalism. They are counteracted by skeptics who think that Ahmadinejad really won: he is the voice of the majority, while the support of Mousavi comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. In short: let’s drop the illusions and face the fact that, in Ahmadinejad, Iran has a president it deserves. Then there are those who dismiss Mousavi as a member of the cleric establishment with merely cosmetic differences from Ahmadinejad: Mousavi also wants to continue the atomic energy program, he is against recognizing Israel, plus he enjoyed the full support of Khomeini as a prime minister in the years of the war with Iraq.

Finally, the saddest of them all are the Leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad: what is really at stake for them is Iranian independence. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed elite corruption and used oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority – this is, so we are told, the true Ahmadinejad beneath the Western-media image of a holocaust-denying fanatic. According to this view, what is effectively going on now in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a West-financed coup against the legitimate president. This view not only ignores facts: the high electoral participation – up from the usual 55% to 85% – can only be explained as a protest vote. It also displays its blindness for a genuine demonstration of popular will, patronizingly assuming that, for the backward Iranians, Ahmadinejad is good enough – they are not yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular Left.

Opposed as they are, all these versions read the Iranian protests along the axis of Islamic hardliners versus pro-Western liberal reformists, which is why they find it so difficult to locate Mousavi: is he a Western-backed reformer who wants more personal freedom and market economy, or a member of the cleric establishment whose eventual victory would not affect in any serious way the nature of the regime? Such extreme oscillations demonstrate that they all miss the true nature of the protests.

The green color adopted by the Mousavi supporters, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that resonate from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness, clearly indicate that they see their activity as the repetition of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, as the return to its roots, the undoing of the revolution’s later corruption. This return to the roots is not only programmatic; it concerns even more the mode of activity of the crowds: the emphatic unity of the people, their all-encompassing solidarity, creative self-organization, improvising of the ways to articulate protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline, like the ominous march of thousands in complete silence. We are dealing with a genuine popular uprising of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.

There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo-Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distributing of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new rich class, the result of the regime’s corruption (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country).

Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of identity politics, promising favors to all particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for the genuine resuscitation of the popular dream which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself. What this means is that the 1979 Khomeini revolution cannot be reduced to a hard line Islamist takeover – it was much more. Now is the time to remember the incredible effervescence of the first year after the revolution, with the breath-taking explosion of political and social creativity, organizational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. The very fact that this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the Khomeini revolution was an authentic political event, a momentary opening that unleashed unheard-of forces of social transformation, a moment in which “everything seemed possible.” What followed was a gradual closing through the take-over of political control by the Islam establishment. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the “return of the repressed” of the Khomeini revolution.

And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.

The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line.

Source: http://itself.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/will-the-cat-above-the-precipice-fall-down/

Statement of Iranian Documentary Filmmakers

We are documentary filmmakers. Our work is to discover and tell the truth. Truth can only be found when all aspects of reality are told. In the course of recent events in our country, our national media, by deliberately hiding the realities, is making it impossible for the public to access the truth.

We are documentary filmmakers. Our work is through media. The National Iranian Television belongs to the entire Iranian society and should be committed to represent social events truthfully and different points of view in their diversity. It should not be the mouthpiece of a specific faction and ignore a vast part of society.

We are documentary filmmakers. Our work is art and we are committed to the culture, art, and language of our country. The language of journalism should respect the dignity and honor of a society. The National Iranian Television, by distorting and suppressing the news and with the use of degrading rhetoric, makes lying and slander acceptable. It also addresses people with degrading and abusive vocabulary and thus provokes the people into confrontation and uproar.

We warn: Under the present tense circumstances depriving the society of a peaceful and respectful discourse can result in violent reactions; a society whose people up to election day were promoting their diverse views peacefully and respectfully.

We warn: This kind of action means sharing the responsibility for any kind of violence, terror, social disruption, and human tragedies. It divides and antagonizes a society that is able to create unity by justice.

In the last 30 years, each and every citizen of this country has shared happiness and sorrow. They have fought side by side, brought sacrifices and lost loved ones.

We are a people with a history of several thousand years. We all belong together and share this history and this country. Do not tear us apart.

17 June, 2009

Who is Atoussa H.?

They say: “History repeats itself.” I respond: “History does not do anything. We repeat the history by our ignorance, forgetfulness, and indifference. More than three decades ago, in the midst of what was later labeled as the Islamic Revolution of Iran, a philosopher found inspiration for his unleashed fantasies. This Philosopher was French; his name was Michel Foucault, and his new fascination was called “Political Spirituality”. He traveled to Iran a couple of times to observe the “reality”, met Ayatillah Khomeini to be theoretically correct, and wrote joyfully and optimistically about his most profound discovery.

In November 6, 1978 an anonymous reader of Le Nouvel Observateur pen named as Atoussa H. wrote a letter as a response to one of Foucault’s articles. Her letter was censored but published by the editors of the paper. Till this day, no one knows who Atoussa H. was. However her prediction was far more realistic than the philosopher, -Alas!- No one gave a damn.

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s masterpiece; The Little Prince there is a passage about a Turkish astronomer who had discovered a planet. He presented his discovery and scientific observation in an international gathering. No one cared about his scientific achievement, and in fact he was ridiculed for his traditional Turkish clothing. Years later, he presented the same paper, this time wearing Western attire. He was immediately admired and applauded.

Who knows, maybe one day, Atoussa H. could reveal her identity, label herself as a Feminist, Post-structuralist, Post-cultural relativist, Post-nativist, etc. and regardless of all these bloody decades of repression, all the executed souls, and all the abused Iranian women she would be hounored by the indifferent international community as an insightful person. But that would be too late. So let the history repeat itself.

The following translation was printed in: Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution; (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 209.

Living in Paris, I am profoundly upset by the untroubled attitude of French leftists toward the possibility of an “Islamic government” that might replace the bloody tyranny of the shah. Michel Foucault, for example, seems moved by the “Muslim Spirituality” that would advantageously replace, according to him, the ferocious capitalist dictatorship that is tottering today. After twenty five years of silence and oppression, do the Iranian people have no other choice than that between the SAVAK and religious fanaticism? In order to have an idea of what the “spirituality” of the Quran, applied to the letter under Ayatollah Khomeini’s type of moral order, would mean, it is not a bad idea to reread the texts. [ …] Sura 2: “Your wives are for you a field; come then to your field as you wish.” Clearly, the man is the lord, the wife the slave; she can be used at his whim; she can say nothing. She must wear the veil, born from the prophet’s jealousy towards Aisha! We are not dealing here with a spiritual parable, but rather with a choice concerning the type of society we want. Today, unveiled women are often insulted, and young Muslim men do not themselves hide the fact that, in the regime that they wish for, women should behave or else be punished. It is also written that minorities have the right to freedom, on the condition that they do not injure the majority. At what point do the minorities begin to “injure the majority?” […]

Spirituality? A return to deeply rooted wellsprings? Saudi Arabia drinks from the wellspring of Islam. Hands and heads fall, for thieves and lovers. […] It seems that for the western left, which lacks humanism, Islam is desirable… for other people. Many Iranians are, like me, distressed and desperate about the thought of an “Islamic” government. We know what it is. Everywhere outside Iran, Islam serves as a cover for feudal or pseudo-revolutionary opposition. Often also, as in Tunisia, in Pakistan, in Indonesia, and at home, Islam –alas!– is the only means of expression for a muzzled people. The Western liberal Left needs to know that Islamic law can become a dead weight on societies hungering for change. The Left should not let itself be seduced by a cure that if perhaps worse than the disease.

World’s Oldest Animation: An Ancient Iranian Documentary?

The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies reports:

A bowl, which was discovered in a grave at the 5200-year-old Burnt City by an Italian archaeological team in late 1970s, bears five images depicting a wild goat jumping up to eat the leaves of a tree, which the members of the team at that time had not recognized the relationship between the pictures.

Several years later, Iranian archaeologist Dr Mansur Sadjadi, who became later appointed as the new director of the archaeological team working at the Burnt City discovered that the pictures formed a related series.

Nonetheless, according to English daily Mehr, during a ceremony held on Sunday to promote the production, CHTHO’s cultural authorities claimed the image is a depiction of ‘Assyrian Tree of Life’: “the earthenware bowl, which is wrongly known as ‘The Burnt City’s goat’, depicts the myth of ‘The Assyrian Tree of Life’ and a goat.”

Depiction of ‘The Assyrian Tree of Life’ on this bowl which was made at least 1000 years before the Assyrian civilisation even appear in historical records is one of the most preposterous claims by the new-breed of experts in post-revolutionary Iran.

The image is a simple depiction of a tree and wild-goat (Capra aegagrus) also known as ‘Persian desert Ibex’, and since it is an indigenous animal to the region, it would naturally appear in the iconography of the Burnt City.

The wild goat motif can be seen on Iranian pottery dating back to the 4th millennium BCE, as well as jewellery pieces especially among Cassite tribes of ancient Luristan. However, the oldest wild goat representation in Iran was discovered in Negaran Valley in Sardast region, 37 kilometers from Nahok village near Saravan back in 1999. The engraved painting of wild goat is part of an important collection of lithoglyphs dating back to 8000 BCE.

However, wild goat representation with a tree is associated with Murkum, a mother goddess who was worshipped by all the Indo-Iranian women of the Haramosh valley in modern Pakistan, which culturally had closer ties with Indus and subsequently the Burnt City civilisations, than Mesopotamia, which could had influenced the ancient potter who made this unique piece.

Iranians: Let’s measure our universality.

During my last visit to Iran, I was self-burdened to find out how many articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were being neglected in my homeland. Not that I am not aware that these articles are being neglected universally, and on daily basis, by the imposers both in the developed and developing countries. However my focus is on Iran, as I am geographically bound to her and her affairs. After reading through the declaration a second question intrigued me. How familiar are the Iranian people with this Declaration? As some of you might have known, Iranians are proud of having the first declaration of Human Rights, written about 2500 years ago by Cyrus the Great. Isn’t it ironic to be a descendant of the human rights originators, and experience the negligence of its contemporary version at the same time? Thus I decided to through both these questions out, and measure the universality of the rights as well as the familiarity of Persians with it. I have also downloaded and attached the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Farsi, to make things easier in case of any governmental filtering of the UN website.

The Declaration in Farsi:

Memory Detoxication, Documented.

This writing is dedicated to a friend. He was from Israel, but his name was Iran! I was from Iran, but my name was jewish! I found him by his music while I was lost in my dreams, on the shores of the Arabian Sea, in India, deeply intoxicated for the memories that I couldn’t bear any longer. He was lost too, also intoxicated, but with his music, for the memories that he couldn’t bear any longer. The north winds carried his music to my ears, and the south winds carried my body, willfully to his hiding place. He played his Mandolin to forget, and I listened to his music to remember. There, that night, and on that shore I learned how repression can connect people. There with that music I learned how similar the souls of the repressed and the repressor are. There with him, I learned how deeply connected our trauma was.

Waltz with Bashir reminded me of my Israeli friend Iran, more than anything else. He was not a typical Israeli guy. Unlike the stereotypical Israeli guys who where in India, just to decompress after their service in the Army, do drugs and get ready for the next serious phase in their life, he was there to escape a past and never return to it. “I will never go back to that shit-hole again. I prayed day and night, for not being ordered to shoot some kids on the front. That could have happened so easy. I could have been a killer so fucking easy.”

Waltz with Bashir reminded me of my friend Iran. Because like him, this documentary wants to remember. It does not want to intoxicate, like the stereotypical Israeli media. It does not want to victimize the jew, like the typical jewish media. It wants to remember, detoxicate, and stand for the things that have been done to others. It wants to show how deeply connected the repressor and the repressed are . 

Iran Is Alive: Realization of an Idea

Project: Iran Is Alive.

An installation by: Davoud Geramifard & Estelle Hebert

Performer: Ida Meftahi

Thanks to: Steve Daniels

After two weeks of constant work and with the help of Estelle, the best partner in the whole world, and Steve Daniels the most dedicated prof in the whole world, our installation was presented.

The Initial idea was to have a map of Iran with bordering countries and bodies of water on the floor. Borders of Iran would be covered by lace or transparent cloth. A dancer would be within the closed space. Audience would be instructed to ask questions about Iran, and the dancer would answer these questions with performance. Her movement would be detected by a sensory system and a computer would pick a category of documentary images related to the question. these images would be projected from multiple projectors on the transparent screen.

The outcome was mostly as exact as I’ve imagined it. The structure and the curtain functioned exactly the way it should. Projections created the desired superimposition as I’ve intended. The size of the images differed from what I had in mind, due to the limitatins that the space created for us. I wanted the images to cover the curtains more than what we had. The playback patch worked perfectly, and randomization was as we desired. The sensory system did not function fully and needed to be revised. For a new version, I will use sensors to detect the motion from the floor as opposed to cameras. The performance was perfect. Ida absolutely understood the feeling I wanted and expressed it perfectly.

As I have addressed in my previous post about this work, I imagine things as a whole. I do not start a project without being sure about the outcome. I think this helps me to make things as exact as possible. My endings/outcomes are not open-ended. the most important aspects of this piece for me were the metaphors and symbols embedded in the piece, which I think were mostly recognized by the audience. The technological component of the work was new to us, however with Steve’s help and supervision this obstacle was also overcome. These are the main two reasons that made the outcome as exact as what i had in mind.

Learned from this piece were a lot. The most important and the most enjoyable experience in this work were the freedom and new horizons that a new media piece offers. New media is limitless, and very much unexplored for me. I look forward to have more experiences in this field. I have learned that new media is the perfect field for me to combine my engineering/architectural experiences in space design with my experience in image-making and create atmospheres for more powerful visual/spatial experiences. I have learned that I need to dedicate time and perfect my skills in programming in order to realize my ideas in new media.

New media certainly affects my work. It is the perfect field for actualizing my ideas. Being a real film freak, I can hardly limit myself to the traditional media anymore. However I still have two fundamental questions that I will try to overcome about new media:

- New Media’s dependency to gallery spaces limits my social audience and distribution. My message is political and needs to reach the masses. How can I reach that degree of communication within new media practice?

- Galleries/curators create tradition and restrict creativity. This is an old pitfall in art practice. How can I avoid that while practicing new media? How open the gallery system can be to new and iconoclastic ideas?

Human appearance and Social Categories: An Unfinished Experience

Nothing fascinates me more than observing how important ‘looks’ are for people. Undoubtedly the way a person looks, his/her visage, hairstyle, use of make-up, choice of clothing and body language define how he/she is conceived by the society. In a very general way and based on the most stereotypical rules of judgment, our looks define our character in our surroundings.

Experience no.1: Less than a year ago, I finished a photography book about this issue. the book is called ‘Unveiled’ focuses on two ladies, both immigrants and living in Toronto. I took some studio shot, lets say some details of these ladies’ face, back, belly, and necklaces in an unidentifiable way, and showed it to random people, while recording their assumptions about these ladies. Then I gave two cameras to these ladies, and asked them to record their lives the way they were. Each category of images formed a chapter of the book. The contrast was surprising. Assumptions were way to incorrect. The gap was unimaginable.

Signified: 2 Ladies, Immigrants, Persian.

Signifier: Details of body.

Relation between signified and viewer: Unrelated

Reaction of the viewer: Based on the signifier, the viewer searches for the proper ethnic group that the signified could be a member of. The viewer categorizes the signified in an stereotypical way, and assumes that the characteristics of the other members of this category could be applicable to this member. Signified stays

Experience No.2: This semester, I was about to explore Secondlife for the first time. It was a class experience, meaning that I was walking around in this virtual world with my classmates and Professor. The experience was unique, so I tried to use this chance for another experience. I chose an avatar with the closest visual characteristics to myself. I spend a few minutes, and played with the available tools to make this avatar as much me as possible. However at the help island I realized that there are a lot of new avatars similar to mine with minute differences.

The day we had our Secondlife tour, people were sitting in a lab, each behind a computer. It was a unique documentary experience. My classmates were all entertained by seeing each other’s avatars while figuring out which avatar belonged to whom. However my avatar was so noticeably similar to me that it repeatedly surprized people. They mostly and almost immediately accepted my avatar as myself.

Now the unexplored part of my experience starts here: My avatar is not a unique one. I’m sure that if my classmates spend more time in Secondlife, they will come across my avatar again, but this time it will be someone else’s avatar. However because of the fact that this avatar was conceived by them as mine, they will immediately relate it to me, and my personalities, although it belongs it someone else. In a way, this avatar has created a category, lets call it “Davoud’s category”, that my classmates would refer to repeatedly. However the behaviour of these Davoud’s avatars are not necessarily like Davoud.

Signified: At first Davoud, later any other individual.

Signifier: Davoud’s Avatar.

Relation between signified and viewer: Related, signified is known to the viewer.

Reaction of the viewer: The viewer gets the basic similarities between the signified and the signifier, and applies the characteristics of the signified to the signifier. Signifier replaces the signified in a virtual world and becomes the signified.

My questions: Is categorization a part of any human interaction? Do we all base our new visual experiences on the previous ones? Is generalization/categorization/stereotyping inadvertent? Can categorization be limited/omitted in a virtual world?