Rehearsals for a Revolution
This Cannes-awarded documentary unravels Iran’s bloody recent history through previously unseen footage and personal memories.
By one definition, madness is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Still, the Iranians generation after another taking to the streets to protest cannot be diagnosed with a mental disorder – even though in the world of today hope probably deserves its own disease classification.
The journey of the Islamic Republic of Iran founded in 1979 has been bloody. The authoritarian government has suppressed every whisper of uprising, getting more brutal every time. The brutality shows up only in the estimates of the number of the dead rising from individuals to hundreds, and eventually to thousands and tens of thousands.
Awarded L’Œil d’or for best documentary at the Cannes Film Festival, Pegah Ahangarani doesn’t only play by numbers. She creates an overview of Iran’s gruesome recent history through her own experiences and those of people around her. The history and individual stories intertwine together, because they are inseparable: grief is a familiar visitor in every Iranian family.
Ahagarani runs the story captivatingly from hope to disappointment and then back again. The material consisting of personal archives, news clippings, phone recordings and family photos captures and pierces. Warning, at points the imagery gets as violent as the reality it depicts.
Minna Saarinen (translated by Laura Niittynen)
Screenings
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Maxim 2Fri 18.9. at 18.15–19.5095 min, 1/3
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Kino Engel 1Sat 26.9. at 21.00–22.3595 min, 2/3
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Kino Engel 1Sun 27.9. at 16.30–18.0595 min, 3/3