Iraqi, Iranian films on dictatorship wows International Film Festival of India
“When such things happen, the people suffer, not the dictators,” Radu said during a conversation with the audience after the screening of his film on 25 November.
Stories of ordinary people being pushed to the margins under authoritarian rule formed the storylines of two films from Iraq and Iran, which were screened at two separate competitive categories of the 56th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.
For Iraq's "The President's Cake," competing for the ICFT UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Medal, the film's editor Alexandru-Radu Radu spoke about the film's "unique form" and its portrayal of life under Saddam Hussein's reign in the 1990s.
"The President's Cake" chronicles the story of young Lamia, who is tasked with baking a cake for Saddam Hussein, facing potential punishment if she fails. The film shows how international economic sanctions on Iraq under Saddam and his rule affected the lower classes.
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"When such things happen, the people suffer, not the dictators," Radu said during a conversation with the audience after the screening of his film on 25 November. The larger message of the film, according to him, is how a dictator forced his country's citizens to celebrate his birthday.
According to Radu, the film's director Hasan Hadi wanted Lamia to be a symbol of Iraq because "everything happening to her reflects everything happening to the country."
Radu also spoke about Iraq's emerging film industry. "Unlike Iran, Iraq doesn't have a film tradition. 'The President's Cake' is the first art-house film in Iraq and directors like Hasa
n are now building that industry."
Radu said the entire cast of "The President's Cake" are non-professionals selected from everyday life, which gives the film immediacy.
Representing the Iranian feature "My Daughter's Hair," which is competing in the 'Best Debut Feature Film of a Director' section at IFFI, its director Seyed Hesam Farahmand Joo said the movie stems from his own personal experience.
"I wanted to portray the situation of women in my country," he said, explaining how the daughter Raha's story of selling her hair for a laptop mirrors the sacrifices made by women navigating financial crisis in Iran. Joo comes from a country whose cinematic tradition has been influential globally.
The film's producer Khaninamaghi described how recent international sanctions have affected living conditions in Iran.
"People are going down financially. The middle class is becoming poor. In our film, a family's entire economy collapses because of one laptop. That is exactly what is happening in our society," he said.
Hesam said he wants to bring socially-rooted stories into commercial cinema. "Earlier, these films were not considered commercial. But I want to change that," he said.
Khaninamaghi referred to the scenario in Iranian cinema, pointing out how filmmakers in his country continue to push boundaries even as its film industry faces censorship. "Once parts of films get cut, the audience struggles to understand the full story," he said.
The two films, coming from neighbouring countries that fought wars among them for years and have contrasting cinematic traditions, are united by a common subject: economic sanctions, the resilience of ordinary people and dictatorial regimes. While Iraq has little to show in terms of its own cinema tradition, Iran has one of the world's influential cinematic traditions.
