[Hidden Camera Sex Iranian
Eliora Shopbell
This remarkable and fascinating documentary offers us candid access into an Iranian divorce court. But it also gives us incredible insight into the often-hidden inner workings of this truly patriarchal society and the spirit of the women who push against it.
The film is almost entirely shot in the shabby, cramped court room, with occasional excursions to the homes of the people involved. The opening voiceover calmly explains that the judge made the filmmakers feel welcome to this noisy, informal and at times chaotic place. We meet the judge, the court clerk and her young daughter, and the man who maintains the case files in the cluttered office next door.
This is more than just a tale of unfortunate yet spirited individuals. Their stories shine a light on the frustrations and restrictions of a legal system where men and woman have very different roles and rights, and where the consequences of divorce are felt much more acutely by the women.
This is a patriarchal society where men and women are segregated, even symbolically with separate entrances to the divorce court. We watch the judge, in a fleeting glimpse outside the court room, as he visits the mosque for prayers sitting at the front immediately in front of the mihrab, the best seat of the house so to speak. Then the camera wanders to the back where we see the women worshipers segregated behind a curtain, once again contrasting the roles of men and women. As Longinotto observed in the Bertha Dochouse Q&A, this extreme separation means that women and men are pushed into gender roles far more than in our western society. And interestingly, in the courtroom the powers seem reversed; accustomed to having their own way without question, the men seem almost powerless and infantilised, when challenged by their wives in this public forum.
The shoot lasted eight or nine weeks, although once they had settled on their main characters they thereafter only filmed these three cases. This makes the chronological structure very straightforward; the main structural decisions appear to have been only how to intersperse the three tales.
An Iranian refugee is suing Canada's public broadcaster and two affiliated journalists after CBC aired a documentary that he says outed him as gay without his consent and which led to abuse and harassment in Iran.
Farzam Dadashzadeh says the CBC documentary, Inside Iran's Secret Gay World, which first aired in 2007, showed footage of him at a weekly gathering for LGBTQ Iranians at a caf in Tehran known as the Jam-a-Jam restaurant.
Dadashzadeh "did not know, and could not reasonably know" that he was being recorded because the filmmakers used a hidden camera, the lawsuit states.
Filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia on 15 August, the lawsuit states that Dadashzadeh suffered from threats of physical harm, sexual assault, arrest, imprisonment, and alienation from friends and family.
Dadashzadeh also says he continues to suffer from depression, insomnia and anxiety as a result.
"The Defendants knew or ought to have known that the Plaintiff was a reasonably foreseeable victim, as a homosexual in Iran," reads the lawsuit, which names CBC and journalists Evan Solomon and Farid Haerinejad as defendants.
"We became aware of the lawsuit last week and are taking some time to consider our options," CBC spokesperson Emma Bedard said in a brief email on Tuesday.
Sodomy is a crime punishable by death in Iran, and other forms of sex between two men or two women are punishable by 100 lashes and death on the fourth conviction, according to Human Rights Watch.
Dadashzadeh says he became aware of the documentary in March 2007, and his immediate family disowned him after they found out about it shortly thereafter.
That same month, Dadashzadeh says a person he did not know physically assaulted him and called him a "faggot". He was arrested after the attack and held in prison for approximately two weeks, during which time he was interrogated and asked about the documentary, the lawsuit states.
He also alleges that while he was detained, other prisoners sexually assaulted, beat and kicked him. The violence was carried out with the assistance of Iranian security forces, the lawsuit alleges.
Upon his release from prison, Dadashzadeh was exempted from mandatory military service in Iran on the basis of having a "sexual disorder", the lawsuit states. Not completing his military service meant that Dadashzadeh was unable to get a stable job, he says.
In 2011, Dadashzadeh fled Iran for Turkey. He was recognised by the United Nations as a refugee on the basis of his sexual orientation that same year. He was granted asylum in Canada in 2014.
Jillian Kestler D'Amours is a journalist based in Canada. Follow her on Twitter: @jkdamours
Another suspect, a 57-year-old woman from Beit Shemesh, tried and failed to photograph the US embassy in Jerusalem, attempted to build a relationship with an Israeli parliament member, and set up a hidden camera in her home. She also allegedly established a club for Iranian expatriates in Israel and transferred information about its members to Rambod.
"The state of Israel is in an ongoing campaign with Iran. It is clear: We see never-ending efforts and attempts by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to recruit Israeli citizens," Bennett said, adding that the long arm of the security establishment will reach anyone who tries to harm Israel's security."
Jafar Panhi (Persian: جعفر پناهی, [d͡ʒˈfɾ pnɒːˈhiː]; born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly associated with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon (1995). The film won the Camra d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first major award an Iranian film won at Cannes.
After several years of conflict with the Iranian government over the content of his films (including several short-term arrests), Panahi was arrested in March 2010 along with his wife, daughter, and 15 friends, and later charged with propaganda against the Iranian government. Despite support from filmmakers, film organizations, and human rights organizations around the world, in December 2010 Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison and a 20-year ban on directing any movies, writing screenplays, giving interviews with Iranian or foreign media, or leaving the country except for medical treatment or making the Hajj pilgrimage.[4] While awaiting the result of an appeal he made This Is Not a Film (2011), a documentary feature in the form of a video diary. It was smuggled out of Iran on a flash drive hidden inside a cake and shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In February 2013 the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival showed Closed Curtain (Pard) by Panahi and Kambuzia Partovi in competition; Panahi won the Silver Bear for Best Script. Panahi's subsequent film Taxi also premiered in competition at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015 and won the Golden Bear, the prize awarded for the best film in the festival.[5] In 2018 he won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay (tied) for 3 Faces; he was unable to leave Iran to attend the festival, so his daughter, Solmaz Panahi, read his statement and received the award on his behalf.[6]
Panahi was born in Mianeh, Iran to an Iranian Azerbaijani family.[7] He has described his family as working class and grew up with four sisters and two brothers.[8] His father worked as a house painter. His family spoke Azerbaijani at home, but Persian with other Iranians.[9] When he was ten years old he wrote on 8 mm film camera. He also acted in one film and assisted Kanoon's library director in running a program that taught children how to operate a film camera.[9] Starting at age 12, Panahi worked after school in order to afford to go see films. His impoverished childhood helped form the humanistic worldview of his films.[10]
Panahi made several short documentary films for Iranian television through the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting's Channel 2. His first short film, The Wounded Heads (Yarali Bashlar), was a documentary about the illegal mourning tradition of head slashing in the Azerbaijan region of northern Iran. The film documents a mourning ceremony for the third Shi'ite Imam, Imam Hossein, in which people hit their heads with knives until they bled. Panahi had to shoot in secret and the film was banned for several years. In 1988 Panahi filmed The Second Look (Negah-e Dovvom), a behind-the-scenes documentary short on the making of Kambuzia Partovi's film Golnar. It focuses on the puppet maker for Partovi's film and his relationship with his puppets.[16][17] It was not released until 1993.[12] In 1990 he worked as an assistant director on Partovi's film The Fish (1991).
In 1992 Panahi made his first narrative short film, The Friend (Doust), an homage to Kiarostami's first short film, The Bread and Alley.[18] That same year Panahi made his second narrative short, The Final Exam (Akharin Emtehan). Both films starred non-professional actors Ali Azizollahi and Mehdi Shahabi and won awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing at Iran's National TV Festival that year.[14] Inspired by a story of a young Luis Buuel once contacting successful film director Jean Epstein to ask for a job in filmmaking, Panahi left a message on Kiarostami's answering machine saying that he loved his films and asking for a job on his next film. Kiarostami hired Panahi as his assistant director for the film Through the Olive Trees.[8][9] He had seen several of Panahi's short films and in 1995 said he was "extremely gifted and can be a promising figure in our cinema's future."
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