With no end in sight to the ongoing war in Iran — both Iran and the U.S. this week seized ships trying to move through the Strait of Hormuz — the country’s filmmakers say they feel both “under attack” — from U.S. and Israeli bombing attacks that have inflicted widespread damage to civilian infrastructure — and “abandoned” by the international community.
Nearly two months after the killing of Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, there is little evidence that the conflict has weakened hardliners inside the Islamic Republic. Instead, power appears to have consolidated around a more hardline leadership tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with figures like Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Guards general, playing a central role in negotiations with the United States.
Two weeks into the shaky, uncertain ceasefire, a form of normality has returned to the streets of Tehran. “Compared to the [first] days of war, there are crowds and hustle and bustle [again],” Iranian film journalist Mansour Jahani tells The Hollywood Reporter. “People are busy with their daily work [but] in meetings and conversations, they talk to each other [about] the latest events and developments of this destructive and illegal war.”
The disruption to the film sector has been immediate. Cinemas across the country closed for 18 days at the start of the war. While several have since reopened, screening a limited number of films, the Nowruz New Year period, a 13-day holiday from March 20, and typically the most important season for the local box office, was severely impacted. There’s been “a serious recession at the box office,” Jahani notes.
Airstrikes have also directly hit the Iranian industry’s infrastructure. The headquarters of the Iranian House of Cinema, the largest independent film industry guild in Iran, was hit and partially destroyed. The historic Shokoufeh Cinema in Tehran was struck twice and remains closed. As Jahani first reported, the home of the late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, Certified Copy) was also damaged in air strikes, along with training centers, documentary facilities and film offices across the country.
Beyond cinema, Jahani points to the broader toll on the Iranian population of the ongoing war. “The homes of a number of actors, filmmakers, and 90,063 residential units of ordinary Iranians and civilians were also targeted and damaged,” he claims.
Earlier this month, two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Salesman), whose new feature, Parallel Stories, will premiere in Competition in Cannes, urged global filmmakers to take a stand against the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Iran, calling on “artists and filmmakers everywhere in the world to be a voice in these critical days and hours, in any way possible, to stop the destructive aggression” of the U.S.-Israeli bombing, which he said has been “not just the destruction of buildings, but an attack on human life and dignity.” Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson, About Elly) has issued similar appeals.
Early in the war, some in the Iranian film diaspora outside the country expressed support for the U.S./Israeli military action, with the hope that the war could lead to regime change. The Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA), a group founded in 2022 following the Women, Life, Freedom movement, which purports to speak for Iran’s dissident filmmaking community, issued a statement backing “targeted actions against government officials and oppressive agents.” The filmmakers’ group also called for the protection of the civilian population of Iran.
But as the war has continued, repression inside the country “has intensified,” says IIFMA board member Mahshid Zamani. The conflict, she argues, has strengthened the very forces it was supposed to weaken. “The government doesn’t answer to anybody anymore. As the war continues, it is to their advantage.”
The association says Iranian authorities are cracking down on its members. They claim they have confiscated the assets of at least 11 filmmakers and actors, including Shirin Neshat, Niki Karimi and Hamid Farrokhnezhad. Dozens more, they say, have been detained or remain unaccounted for.
Zamani says she feels betrayed by efforts from Washington to end the conflict without regime change in Tehran. “Everyone feels that we have been abandoned,” she says.
Inside Iran, Jahani says he sees no indication that the conflict is driving internal political change. “Regardless of their dissatisfaction [with the regime], the Iranian people [have] not welcomed foreign intervention as an opportunity to overthrow the government in their country,” he says. “Wars have always united the Iranian people.”
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