[Reader-list] Interview / Iranian filmmaker Tahmineh Milani

Fri Nov 23 03:48:48 IST 2001

The Christian Science Monitor
November 23, 2001 edition

'HIDDEN HALF': The daring film by Tahmineh Milani questions the place 
of women in today's Iranian society. The hit film has provoked the 
ire of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Council.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON

Threat of execution doesn't faze director
By Bill Kirtz | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Iranian filmmaker Tahmineh Milani calls the threat that she might be 
executed a mere "misunderstanding."

Once it's cleared up, she hopes to continue making internationally 
acclaimed, socially conscious movies on budgets that would hardly 
cover the coffee breaks for the crew on a Hollywood film.

In a possible test case of the level of artistic freedom in Iran, the 
director-scriptwriter has been accused of "exploiting art as a tool 
to promote the ominous aims of counter-revolutionary groups."

Ms. Milani's latest battle with her country's censors comes across 
over her just-released film "The Hidden Half," which traces political 
and feminist struggles after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It has won 
film festival awards and played to overflow audiences in Tehran, 
Iran. But after Milani criticized the state-run television network 
for not advertising it and commented on one of its main themes - the 
thousands killed and jailed after the 1979 revolution - she was 
arrested twice and the picture taken off Iranian screens.

Moviemakers from around the world - including such Hollywood figures 
as Sean Penn, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Spike Lee - 
are among the more than 1,500 who have petitioned Iran to drop the 
charges.

Now out on bail on the personal recognizance of a high government 
official, she and her husband and co-producer, "Hidden Half" co-star 
Muhammad Nikbin, plan to return to Tehran to make more films.

While democratically elected moderate President Mohammad Khatami 
supported Milani's release on bail, the fundamentalist Islamic 
Revolutionary Council, under the control of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 
has been regularly arresting cultural figures who question the 
council's values.

Mr. Nikbin says the council took this direct action against a 
filmmaker to cow other directors who he and his wife hope will join 
them in exploring controversial issues.

Though her films may not strike Western audiences as daring, they 
have regularly offended Islamic values. Milani, with her husband 
translating her words, says fundamentalists "think I make Iranian 
women very aggressive and rude."

Milani's international breakthrough came with the 1991 "Legend of a 
Sigh," which explored the experience of four women from various 
social classes. Her 1999 film "Two Women" contrasts a university 
graduate who decides her own fate with one forced into an arranged 
marriage. An instant box-office hit in Iran, the film wasn't promoted 
on state-run television because it contained shots of the Tehran 
University dormitory, a site of student unrest.

Milani hopes "The Hidden Half" will begin the exploration of a part 
of Iran's history that the country's artists haven't dared to touch - 
the repression of ideas after the revolution.

The film's heroine wonders whether "all revolutionaries of the world 
look like us" - dressed in head scarves and figure-concealing 
clothes. She declares that she's "sick and tired of revolutionary 
cliches."

Twenty years later, as a demure housewife, she discloses her activist 
and romantic past to her husband, a judge, hoping he will be lenient 
with a woman condemned to death for political activities. Milani had 
to couch that "confession" in the form of a long letter, since she 
says no Iranian woman would mention such things to her husband's face.

Milani, who began her film career as a researcher just after the 
revolution, adeptly plays her country's rigorous censorship game. Her 
idea for a film about children's environmental consciousness was 
thwarted because her 8-year-old heroine wasn't wearing a head scarf. 
Until a few years ago, Iranian films couldn't show women running, 
singing, dancing, or in close-up.

In Iran, if filmmakers' plans survive the idea stage, they must then 
submit a short outline of their project. If this is approved, they 
must do the same with the screenplay, and then hope their cast and 
crew is politically sound enough to obtain work permits. After a film 
is shot, officials can mandate revisions and then "grade" it on its 
level of ideological purity.

And, as Milani's case shows, the Revolutionary Council can stop 
distribution and arrest the director even after she cleared all the 
official hurdles.

Why don't Milani and her husband make films in another country? 
Because, he explains, they can shoot them in Iran for only $200,000 
to $300,000 by controlling their own production facilities. And 
Milani feels more productive in her homeland, where she finds that 
women in particular appreciate her concern with their problems. Not 
that she's complacent about her achievements.

"As an artist, you can't be a political person - you have to be 
apolitical and keep a very wide perspective," she says. "We need to 
talk, to have a dialogue, to explore hatred. Unfortunately, a small 
part of society didn't appreciate that. I hope my small step will 
continue."

For further information:

*	The Hidden Half Movie Review Query Engine
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?isindex=The+Hidden+Half
*	Tahmineh Reza'i Milani: Possible Prisoner of Conscience/Fear 
for Safety Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty-usa.org/urgent/action/iran08312001.html
*	Thorn in their side: Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/friday_review/story/0,3605,584749,00.html 

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