Award-winning Iranian film-maker Bahman Ghobadi, in Paris after being released from jail, on Tuesday urged the world to come out in support of the country’s young protesters.
“Iran’s youth has spilled onto the streets because its basic rights are being denied, said Ghobadi who won a prestige award at the Cannes film festival in May for his latest movie, “Nobody Knows About The Persian Cats – a docu-fiction about Tehran’s underground rap and rock scene.
“I cry out in this film and I represent all the young people who cry out in Iran for their rights, that is why there is such a revolt on the streets, he told AFP.
“We merit better than this. That’s why now that they’re in the street, they won’t go back. The international community must back the movement.
Ghobadi spent several days under arrest in Iran early this month and was released shortly before the vote that returned hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for another four years.
“I don’t think the Islamic Republic will fall but youth must be given the reins of the country, we need new blood, Iran’s youngsters must be helped so they can change things from the inside, he added.
His film, warmly received by critics in Cannes, is about two young Iranians trying to put together a band to play in Europe after their release from a stint in jail.
The two-hour movie, made with the help of Ghobadi’s friend, US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, is a no-holds-barred denunciation of censorship shot in secret in just 17 days with a mostly non-professional cast and a shoestring budget.
“There is a gap between the two generations, the generation that made the [1979] Revolution and the 20 and 30-year-olds who have no freedoms and realize they must fight to get them.
In Iran, he said, “music and sex are banned, going to bars is banned, women are not allowed to sing, everything is Islamized, he said.
“I don’t think there is a single other country in the world where young people are so depressed, so pessimistic, where there are so many suicides.
“But the positive thing is that now people are no longer afraid, they dare go out.
Ghobadi, director of auteur award-winners such as “Turtles Can Fly and “A Time for Drunken Horses, was arrested and jailed for a week after trying to enter Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan.
He said the arrest was linked to his criticism of the authorities while at Cannes as well as his attempt to enter the country illegally. He said he had paid a large sum in bail to be freed.
“I am pessimistic, I have little hope of change, he said.
“Why should I have to live abroad, this government is chasing away all of its artists. If they were really patriotic they would not let us leave.
Last week, Iranian writer-directors Marjane Satrapi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf urged world leaders to refuse to recognize the re-election of Ahmadinejad.
“What happened in Iran is even not a fraud, it is a coup, said Satrapi, best-known for her autobiographical “Persepolis graphic novels and the subsequent animated film.
“We need you to support the democratic movement of the Iranian people towards a life in peace, to be able to dream, to define its place as a great nation inside the international community. Tomorrow is too late, she said.
