Just winged in from Iran last night on my '08 Poverty Jet Set tour. It's hard to believe that Tehran is just a bit over 6,000 miles from New York because it feels like the other end of the world. So I'm jet-lagged and am finding writing about my experience there attending the incredible 2nd annual Cinema Vérité Iran International Documentary Film Festival almost as overwhelming as the actual trip turned out to be. Suffice to say, that it was a distinct privilege, as an American, to get to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. Like the United States of America, it is rife with contradictions, has incredible beauty and diversity in its people and its land, and contains gazillions of human beings just trying to live happy, productive, meaningful lives while jockeying for their place in a very chaotic and trying world thanks to traditionalist governments (that's the most diplomatic word I can come up with right now). It ain't easy. (For the record, I do have several rolls of film that are now being developed. I am still that dweeb that shoots film stills instead of digital; I know it's antiquated, but that's the way it is, so you'll just have to be patient.)
I could do a whole essay just on experiencing Iran as a woman--and I probably will, but will save that for another time. I have major stories. In the next couple of posts, I will talk about the festival itself, the films, the special guests that attended, the people I spent time with, new friends and discovered talents, and will share part of a post-mortem conversation I had with festival director, Massoud Bakhshi, and a few others to access how it went, the issues and problems as well as the triumphs and accomplishments, and a look forward to next year and years to come. It was a loose advisory panel, but it was very exciting to be a part of a nascent international film event that will, no doubt, become hugely significant on the world stage. They are strong out of the gate and mean to go the distance. In Bakhshi's words, "The festival is here to answer all the demand that exists in this country."
"This country" has many stories to tell and they are telling them in floods of films--not all of them up to snuff in terms of quality, to be sure. Due to the country's imposed isolation, the filmmakers rely on the dribs and drabs that come in through the veil of censorship (or those that are able to leave the country and return). So their sense of what makes good cinema is sort of akin to "naive" art. And like d'art naif, it has a fierce but clumsy beauty and a very distinct sense of the world that doesn't easily gibe with, or translate into, what is considered great cinema. I, for one, appreciate that enormously when so much of what we see and taste and smell and hear is generic garbage. Because of this dearth of "information" (and we know how dubious that can be), they use their imagination, their emotional intensity, their creativity and their wondrous humor to tell their stories. It may be sloppy sometimes, but it's so alive. A gallery owner I was introduced to said to us, "Oppression does wonders for the arts and literature." (The cover of this year's film catalog, pictured.)
What was really interesting is that the gentlemen that were being feted this year (Richard Leacock, Peter Wintonick and Jorgen Leth--all of whom could save the world with their charm), the invited guests, and the special strands of Finnish and Polish and American films and other programs were also not your run-of-the-mill fare. It was a very peculiar mélange, a type I've never quite experienced before. It was really weird and wonderful. And I felt very much at home. (Despite nearly choking to death on the pollution of Tehran; let's get with the emissions standards, people!).
And the brilliant James Longley is there filming his next project. He arrived the day after we did having finally been granted his visa (which he had expected to get seven months ago). We chatted a bit at a party and he also appeared at the cinemas a couple of days later; they had slipped in his films for exhibition at the last minute, a wonderful treat for the festival attendees which reached tens of thousands in number over the course of the five days--all local to Tehran and its environs.
This festival has astounding statistics: it's received 1,300 national applications since its inception and the Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC), the folks who put on the festival, co-finance and co-produce a lot of these films (300 documentaries a year!) with other local independent film companies. And they are truly independent since a lot are not state-funded. This is an option they themselves choose, so they're ready to say what they want to say and there are consequences for that. These films that get made may still not be able to publicly exhibit in Iran. That's the price one pays--your own countrymen don't get to see your wares in a theater or on TV (sound familiar??); however, there is an enormous DVD market, both above- and below ground, and a very large and very hungry audience. On the plus side, the negative labs are subsidized by the state. And while the government does have its hand in absolutely everything, it is invested in the film industry financially and makes it possible for someone like Bakhshi, who wanted to shoot his film, Tehran Has No More Pomegranates! in 35mm, to do so for about $100K.
There are 200 theaters in Tehran. (That's a lot; but until you've been there, you cannot imagine the size of this city. I come from Los Angeles. I know from big, unwieldy cities with urban growth challenges. But this city is the Godzilla of cities. You have to be tough to hang in that burg.) But another similar situation with which the film industry there deals, as do we, is the content/distribution quandary. (The DEFC is also a major distributor.) How to get it out there; how to get it seen once it makes it out there. And what to do with it after it's been publicly exhibited. On the DVD black market there, one can buy both Iranian, American and other foreign fare for a buck. A "legal" DVD is still only three to four dollars. But the major, major difference between here and there is that a cinema ticket there is about $1.20. One can actually afford to go to the movies! It's actually encouraged!! Is someone paying attention? Maybe it's time to bridge the gap between what it's costing to make movies these days and what it costs to see one, eh? And "free" really shouldn't be an option, in my opinion. We pay for the crappy PEOPLE magazine at the checkout; we can certainly pay for a good flick, even on the Internet.
There are a lot of self-organized festivals in Iran from very small, specifically-themed ones to larger, regional ones, but the Cinema Vérité festival is the only international festival in the country. They experienced a 30% increase in international submissions from last year, receiving close to a thousand films from abroad, mostly from Europe and South America. For the last three years, Bakhshi has been staging an "images from the east" strand at the festival in Sao Paulo, laying some expert groundwork for international exchange. They've also started a doc fund that encourages Iranian filmmakers to go outside the country first before coming to shill for funding in their own country--that's truly revolutionary, I think. Bakhshi really wants to open things up, including the average Iranian artist's scope of things. He also courted the amazing Nisi Masa group, and for the first time, a festival outside of Europe had a wonderful daily magazine with interviews, person-on-the-street photos and comments, reviews and festival highlights. Impressed? We were.
Okay, now for the drawbacks: because many of the Iranian-made films come sliding in at the last minute with no regard to a submission deadline, a lot that were exhibited in the cinemas hadn't had a chance to be subtitled. That's a problem if you truly want to court an international audience. The other issue is, when they are subtitled, the idioms used and other language boo-boos sometimes make them nearly incomprehensible or garner laughs when something distinctly unfunny is happening on the screen.
The viewing schedule was packed to the gills. Tehranis are used to glut, but for visitors, it was untenable to try and get everything in. (Admittedly, this was due to just sheer exhaustion and confusion.) This is fairly normal for a festival where you're working, and those that traverse them regularly know this. So we lucky few can retreat to a viewing library. This is another area that will need a lot of organization and work. The viewing library only contained DEFC-produced fare and even then, a lot was not available. It was particularly important to at least have all of the national competition films. Again, I think this was just due to the time crunch they faced getting a festival of this magnitude up on its legs. But, all in all, it was a challenge to see films for visitors or non-Farsi speaking people.
The cinema complex was always packed and there was a lot of foot traffic on all three levels. However, the cinema space itself could be used to much better effect. There were just gobs of people everywhere with no sense of organization or where to go to ask for what you needed, whether you were a filmmaker looking to meet a particular producer or film executive, or a press person wanting to chat with a particular filmmaker. They did their best by having this absolutely amazing team of coordinators helping to connect people, but if this group hadn't been so sharp and on it (Bakhshi admitted this was an issue last year), it would have been utter chaos with missed opportunities for meetings and other important encounters one relies on having at an event like this. There weren't even any parties with filmmakers. The guests were fed, watered and squired around like we were royalty which was fab, but we never really got to mingle en masse with filmmakers and this was a shame. We came there to meet them and they came there to meet us. There should be more of a meet market approach, the kind that Heather Croall is praised with creating at Sheffield.
The space where the actual market was could have been better conceived. It was a bit too exclusionary and a very static and unwieldy space to navigate, even though it was housed in a beautiful gallery conveniently across the street from the cinemas.
Having said all that, the tribute sessions and panels were very well-attended with Maestro Wintonick giving a five-hour session to a small group of filmmakers (that's including translation time, but still!). Everyone worked hard, audience included, to make this event all it could be. It was quite easy to connect once you figured out who you wanted to connect with--it just took a bit of time, that's all. But a bit more organization and forethought will come with experience, I've no doubt about that.
In my next post, I'd like to share a 100-second film by an Iranian woman who made her extraordinary piece for $110 (and impressed the hell out of me with her sales skills), and to also talk about another (already accomplished) Iranian filmmaker that many of us are certain has a long and solid career in front of him for as long as he desires. These and a few others will be coming to our shores soon, inshallah. More in a bit.
Great report, Pamela. I'm envious, of course. Some similarities, if you can believe it, with my experience in Reykjavik a few weeks ago (long report on my site if you're interested).
Posted by: James McNally | October 29, 2008 at 09:47 PM
very interesting...
Cant wait for the next posts....
Posted by: Lior Cohen | October 25, 2008 at 03:14 PM
I was at Cinema Verite Tehran at the same time as you and I really enjoyed this article.
That's how it also felt to me, a French woman in Tehran.
Posted by: valerie | October 23, 2008 at 07:34 PM