Mehdi Torfi

Can you tell us something about your background ? I grew up in Sousangerd, in the province of Khouzestan. I went to art school in Tehran, where I studied cinema and creative writing, but I left before I finished. I write poetry and short stories as well as making films. For the first film I made, I won an award at a film festival in Austria in 1382 (2003), and I have won some more prizes since then. So far, I’ve made ten fiction films and two documentaries, not counting my latest film Azadi Cinema, the final version of which will be shown for the first time here at the festival.

Azadi Cinema is a very poetic film. Does the fact that you’re a poet influence the way you make films ? Well, not directly, I write poetry mainly for myself, but I do think literature is the highest of the seven arts. I like films that are based on literature, and I aim for that in my own work as well.

Which directors have influenced you ? Actually, I don’t like it when people are heavily influenced by specific films or directors. As for me, I just think about scenes I liked or other things I noticed in different films. But if I had to name influences I would say Naser Taghvaie and Amir Naderi.

How did you come across the theme of Azadi Cinema ? I wanted to make a documentary about my native province of Khouzestan. When I was doing research in Sousangerd, I stumbled across this Azadi Cinema where I used to go as a child. I decided to tell its story. It was burned down twice, during the Revolution and then during the war with Iraq. The owner of the cinema had passed away, so I decided to have his ghost tell the story of his ‘house’ ; this cinema where so many old people went to see The Godfather or Papillon.

Have you showed it to the people of Sousangerd ? Yes, and they liked it very much. For them, it was a very important and interesting film. I wanted to make a nostalgic film, to make a connection between the people in the cinema and their memories. The story of this cinema is not unique. Events of the last decades in the country destroyed many cinemas. In Ahwaz there used to be sixteen cinemas, since the war there are only four left.

How important is this setting in Khouzestan to you ? The Arab people who live in Khouzestan have a very specific culture ; their own language, poetry, clothes. Some of my fiction films are set there as well. For me, it’s important that my films help gain more recognition for this culture. In a positive way – I don’t want to show just the war zone that it has become. The houses are in ruins, you see bullet holes everywhere, and almost everyone has lost members of their family in the war. You can feel the sadness there ; the people seem to have lost the will to live. The border is a river, dividing the people of their culture between Iran and Iraq. And just across this river are the American soldiers ; the people fear another war. This situation there is so bad, I decided to make my next film about it.

Will it be a documentary ? It will be a fiction actually. It is about an Iraqi soldier who flees to Iran to escape the war with America. But there he sees an Iranian soldier he had injured in the war between Iran and Iraq. He wants to flee from this confrontation too. The soldiers have to face another war – a mental one. The story is told through the eyes of a dog that the Iraqi steals along the way. Looking through the eyes of this animal, we do not have to choose between the two human beings ; the sadness is told in an indirect way.

Maartje Alders and Rebecca Wilson