Pizza My City Ala Mohseni

“Tehran has the best pizza in the world!”

After two decades of serious subjects and grey documentaries from Iran, it seems that the younger generation of filmmakers are choosing to tell their stories using humour and satire. My City, Pizza by Ala Mohseni -selected for the IDFA silver cup competition this year- is a good example of this approach.

Part of a series of short documentaries by Maziar Bahari, this humble film reveals the persistent fight between tradition and modernity in the daily life of the Iranian capital. The result is not only about an interesting change in food culture, in which the traditional Iranian KAL-E-PACHEH (sheep’s head and trotters) and AB-GOUSHT (broth) are being rapidly replaced by fast food and pizza, but also about a complex and young society which is thirsty to open up to the world, adopting its new values.

The director’s critical point of view is expressed through a mocking soundtrack, intelligent editing and some funny comments from Tehrani people interviewed for the film. The opposing and controversial ideas from different layers of society mix together: from the old, traditional and conservative opinions of the people who hate pizza, to the youngsters who love it and the culture of fast food.

There are moments which make you laugh even after it’s over: Mohammad -a young man from the countryside experiencing his first pizza, images of sheep’s heads sculpted in Persepolis alongside those of sheep’s heads in restaurants, a traditional sportsman who never tells his wife when he has pizza out of home, and Nino Rota’s soundtrack for The Godfather played over the scenes shot in a pizzeria named after the famous film.

My City, Pizza is an intimate and easy-to-watch film that focuses on a small yet important subject in today’s Iran, and brings attention to a new aspect of what is called the “process of transition”.

Massoud Bakhshi