Fragments d’une révolution

Seen through the (very) small screen of the cell phones of hundreds of amateur reporters, what does the “Green Revolution”–which for one year contested the June 2009 elections in Iran–look like? Via email and YouTube, the filmmaker(s), anonymous Iranian men and women living abroad, reconstitute the political events in which their friends were taking part at the risk of their lives. “During those eight months, it’s as if I was living virtually in Tehran” says an off-screen voice, whose fingers are seen saving the videos to a computer. While storing these images, the filmmaker(s) see(s) the situation as “a large puzzle with some pieces missing”. And it is unsure whether this new, spontaneous and popular media can redress the imbalance between the demonstrators’ unavoidable clandestinity and the exhibitionism of the authoritarian authorities: the only ones likely to show their face are the representatives of power… “but their faces are masks”. Comparing images from 1979 with those from 2009, Fragments also explores the shift from one revolution to the other: “yesterday’s rioters are today’s guard dogs”.