ARRESTED CINEMA : L’IRAN

How do you know what you can film or not film? Where are the limits to the exercise of power? How can you define them and how can you resist? Is it a question of censorship or self-censorship? With Arrested Cinema, Cinéma du réel is continuing its reflection – begun in 2012 – on filmmaking “confined to resistance”, in those parts of the world where the freedom to create is not a given. This year we will explore the situation of Iranian filmmakers on the eve of the country’s June 2013 presidential election, with Mehran Tamadon, the director of Bassidji. “For ten years or so, I’ve been filming the world of those who defend the Iranian regime. The Bassiji, the Guardians of the Revolution, the mullahs. During the evening session, I’m going to talk mainly about my experience. This is not the experience of someone who is trying to denounce a system, but rather looking for a political attitude that enables me to exist with respect to the other. The other who denies my existence. Occupying space, not giving way. Demanding something them, obliging them to look me in the face, forcing them to answer me – this is what I’ve been doing in recent years. Drawing on rushes from my past films and my work in progress, I will present my work methods and how I go about speaking, discussing, existing.” (Mehran Tamadon)

Hosted by Agnès Devictor, lecturer at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, specialist in Iranian cinema

Partnered by Arte