Interview with Mahvash Sheikholeslam

Mahvash Sheikholeslam is a maker of short documentary films whose post-revolutionary films have focused on women in rural Iran. After a twenty-year break from directing where she worked as an executive producer on various film and T.V. productions, she resumed directing in 1995. She has recently made two short films, Yoofek (Silk, 1998) and Char-shoo (1999) about women in the Turkaman region in northern Iran. She is also the director of Sefeed Jamegan (White Robes, 1995) and Sokmeh Doozy (1996).

TZ - The style in which you make your films is very interesting in that you combine documentary and story-line forms. Can you explain why you have chosen this style?

Sheikholeslam -I love documentary films, and I consider my films to be documentaries. Because I want to show specific observations, thoughts, and reflections about the places I have visited, I create stories to weave them all together. My staged scenes are based on what I've seen of peoples' lives and customs. This mixed style is something that I like and will continue to work with.

All my recent films have been about women and rural life. After traveling a great deal, I have come to the conclusion that rural women are pretty alone and without much protection. Although I know that our rural population is rapidly diminishing- I think 80% of our population now lives in urban areas - rural traditional culture is still very much alive. Many cities in Iran pretty much operate like villages. There may be electricity, running water, telephones, T.V., city hall and a mayor, but the foundations are still very traditional.

Women in Tehran are pretty different than the rest of the country. They live in a more open environment, where information is more accessible, available; they see and learn more, and they ask questions. Even if they're illiterate or from a lower socio-economic class, information is accessible to them, more so than anywhere else in Iran.

In the northern province of Gorgan, where I traveled extensively and filmed my last two films, I saw how alone and unprotected the women were. With the exception of their husbands and children, they really have no one. Many are married off to men from different villages, and become separated from their families. Very often, the husband is not around for a variety of reasons, usually work-related.
My movie, Yoofek (Silk), is set in a silk producing region. From start to finish, women are responsible for its production. Worms need to be at approximately body temperature for about 10-15 days before entering the maturation stage. In rural areas, women put the worms in a sac and place it near their bosoms during those days.

Yoofek shows the life of a pregnant woman who is alone, working, and waiting for her husband to return from an unexplained absence. I don't provide an explanation because my focus is on the impact his absence has on his wife, regardless of the reason. I will add, however, that in some villages, men return home for the delivery date of their pregnant mares, but not for the birth of their own children. That's the woman's responsibility.

I'm trying to show women's lives without passing judgment on the husbands. The woman in my film is without family and help. She is working hard, and waiting for the silk worms to mature, for her baby to be born, and for her husband to return. She goes to the end of the road everyday in anticipation, while sustaining the growing life in her womb, and of the silkworms against her bosom.

As a woman, I'm more sensitive to women's hardships, and as a filmmaker, I'm aware that far more movies are made about the plight of men than women.

The women really impressed me, but they struck me as somewhat defenseless in the face of the established patterns set before them. They all marry by time they're 15 or 16, although I know that in some villages, the age of marriage is increasing. If the girl is lucky, she'll get married to a man who treats her well and she'll lead a comfortable life. But if her husband is not, then it's like a life sentence. There's really nothing she can do except raise her children, get old, marry them off, and so on. There's not much else allowed for in their lives.

There's a scene where several girls sing a song that has been sung for generations among the women. It is about the loneliness and homesickness a girl feels when she is married off, and separated from her family and village. My other recent film, Char Shoo- a kind of wedding veil- is about just that.

I was told about a custom where a few hours before a wedding, the bride and her girlfriends go off and have a picnic alone so they can spends several last hours together. I loved that custom and filmed such a scene in Char Shoo. The stories the girls tell each other are stories that have been passed down for years. One girl recounts the story of a woman who lost her true love when she was 14 years old because of an arranged marriage to a 60 year-old man. Another story is about a girl who waits at night under the moonlight to secretly see her love.

In preparing for this scene, I met the families of every girl so they could get to know me and trust that I would take good care of their daughters during the shoot. The location was several hours away and we needed to stay overnight, but I promised the parents that I would return their daughters by noon of the next day. That was not a lot of time, and I really had to hurry.

Picking up the girls individually, taking them to the location, explaining what I was looking for in the scene, setting up, and all the rest, and having it all ready before sundown was quite a challenge. I was under a big time pressure, but I knew that every girl absolutely had to be back by noon.

As much as these constraints can get very stressful, I like short films precisely because of the limited time and budgets, the difficult and unpredictable situations, and the urgency in addressing unforeseen difficulties, because they are all somehow reflected in the film.

MS - The last scene in Char Shoo was very striking, when the girl is seated on the horse, dressed up in her wedding clothes, and being led away by her husband to his village. She doesn't look happy or even sad. She looks resigned. There was something very uncomfortable about watching a young vibrant girl passively and quietly sitting on a horse, while her husband is walking in front, leading them both away.

Sheikholeslam - In that village, there's an oral account that's passed down, describing how one should prepare for different kinds of guests. For the guest who has borne a son, then one should set up a white tent and throw down a white rug, and give that woman the best hospitality possible. For the guest with a daughter, set up a red tent and throw down a red rug, and for the woman who is barren, set up a black tent with a black rug and provide the most rudimentary reception. The women in the movie recite the account with half of their faces concealed, because in this region, recently married girls must wear a covering that covers their mouth so as to not speak openly and freely in the beginning of their marriage.

And in the last scene of Char Shoo, where the bride is being led away on that horse, I was trying to convey that she was thinking and perhaps, worrying about her future. What her future holds greatly depends on events that are out of her control, such as her sex-specific childbearing abilities. The way her husband, family, and the community treat her depends on such factors. The wife who has only bore daughters will continually try until she succeeds in giving birth to a boy. And if she can't have children, her future will be very dim. Her husband will treat her poorly, divorce her, get another wife, or some combination thereof.

TZ - Why do you think Iranian cinema has progressed so much in recent years, as compared to other art forms?

Sheikholeslam - Abbas Kiorastami has to be thanked for the growth of Iranian cinema. He is one of the people who moved Iranian cinema forward and presented it to the rest of the world. In many ways, he has shown Iran more effectively than any other person or institution has been able to.

TZ - Did you study cinema in Iran?

Sheikholeslam - No, I studied at the Film School of London and after graduating, I returned to Iran in 1974. The film industry in Iran was very underdeveloped back then and the Ministry of Culture was actively recruiting Iranians from abroad through the embassies.

I began working and making documentary films commissioned by the Ministry of Culture. There wasn't much of an independent film industry back then and most work was either through the Ministry of Culture or in TV. I was commissioned to make several short documentaries, and none of them were released. The Ministry disliked all of my films, and I was constantly at war with them. The minister had to sign off on all the films, and he refused to release mine. He said that he didn't understand why a young woman such as myself had such pessimistic visions.

The reality was that the Ministry basically wanted to show films that portrayed the Iranian political system in a positive light. He wanted all the documentaries to show Iran as this golden successful country that was moving forward through all of these wonderful government projects. However, every time I went on location and checked out the projects myself, I found otherwise.

Toop (Ball, 1975) was about the proliferation of construction projects throughout Tehran. A lot of the construction sites were for apartment complexes, and it made no sense, because there was no need for them. There was still plenty of land, and no overcrowding problem yet. So I made a futuristic movie about a group of kids playing soccer in an open field who are forced to relocate because of the arrival of a bulldozer for the construction of a new apartment complex. As soon as they find a new place, another construction crew arrives to force another relocation. After several similar instances, the kids eventually arrive at a newly completed apartment complex and resume their soccer match, where the ball is kicked into, and breaks one of the complex's windows. The minister wouldn't release it because, he said, it was too sad and pessimistic about the future. There was another one, Zelzelaye Quer-o-Karzi (Earthquake of Quer and Karzi, 1975) about a region that had been ravaged by an earthquake. The Ministry didn't like that either.

Then, I was commissioned to make a film showcasing a new housing complex they had built for villagers. Once I got there, I saw that no one was living in it. The government had built living spaces with virtually no consideration for the people they were ostensibly building it for. The spaces were closed and contained, there was no outdoor space for the residents or for their livestock, the bathrooms were attached to the living quarters… These living spaces made no sense and had no practical use for that population. And I showed this in my movie, preventing yet another release.

Another un-released film, Aab (Water, 1974) was supposed to be about the great work that the Ministry of Health was doing. I went to the island of Qeshm in the south of Iran, only to find that the people were getting sick from their water supply which came from a contaminated reservoir. I couldn't believe that I was expected to make a film about the great advances the government was facilitating when these people didn't even have running water, and were getting sick from the water source they were using. It was crazy. I asked the health officials what they were doing to fix the problem, and to be fair, many of them were really trying. But they said that there wasn't much they could do because there was no system in place. They were pretty frustrated themselves.

Finally after realizing that I just couldn't make the kind of films that were being asked of me, I took a job in production to help a friend with his film project. I budgeted the film's money, planned the shooting schedules, made a time-line, and took care of other production responsibilities. Because films hadn't been made that way in Iran, and people noticed the effectiveness and efficiency in having an executive producer, I found myself in great demand. Even though, I didn't like the work much, and was interested in making films, I continued doing it due to the great demand and need that existed. For the next twenty years, I worked as an executive producer for film and TV productions.

MS - Is it hard to work as a female director?

Sheikholeslam - Well, you have to know your crew, and I have worked with the same crew for the past several years. But I don't see a noticeable difference between pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. In the TV and film industries, you encounter a wide variety of people- from the upper echelons to the lowest ones. As a director, I know that the way I speak to my lead actress will be different than the way I talk to my crew member. You have to know human psychology, your environment and how to communicate with various people t o get the job done. Otherwise, you won't last.

As a woman director, I always dressed in loose clothing- for comfort and because I didn't want anyone to think of me as anything but a professional. I never wanted to contend with being spoken to insultingly. I was always very cautious about the way I spoke, stood, and even the way I bent down to pick something up. Even before the revolution, when I visited smaller cities and villages, I always wore the hejab and long sleeve shirts because my surroundings warranted it.

I found it to be more comfortable that way, and I maintained respect for my surroundings. And because I never married, and didn't have a man to back me up, I had to be more careful. It's harder being a woman without any male support.

I worked with many foreign production companies, and they just didn't get it. In the bazaar in Yazd, for example, the Europeans would take off their top layer of clothing to get some sun. The bazaar is a conservative place, especially in a religious city like Yazd. Most of the people turned their heads away, but some commented on the Europeans' behavior. I was pretty upset over the production crew's lack of respect. I told them that my being from this country and my style of dress should have served as a cue.

Ironically, I wish the opposite now because of the different conditions. I think the more Iranians see variety and diversity, the better it will be as a whole.

MS

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