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It's early on a Wednesday morning - the morning after Maryam
Keshavarz's film, Circumstance screened as the centrepiece at the
BFI Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2012.
Set in Iran in 2007, Circumstance is a brilliant and beautiful
film about a precocious teenage girl who falls into a sexual
relationship with her best friend, and finds herself entangled in a
treacherous web of surveillance and deceit. It was met with
widespread acclaim and was no doubt lauded at the BFI LLGFF
too.
It's no surprise then that the acclaimed director has probably had
a late night celebrating, and is now a tad tardy for her first
interview of the day. Concierge ring up to her room, tell her I'm
waiting in the lobby and, after a short pause, assure her that
they'll send some painkillers up right away.
But she's down in a flash - I doubt she even waited for the pills
- and striding over to me in tracksuit bottoms, hair tied
whimsically back and a no-nonsense smile on her face. Presumptions
about last night's inebriation are immediately forgotten as the
first thing I notice and embarrassingly manage to splutter is "But
- you're so young!"
"But you're young too," she grins back. True, but it's not like I
have an award-winning film showing at the Festival. Hell, all I've
got is videos of myself singing along to Shania Twain tagged on
Facebook.
We sit down for coffee and before even being prompted by me, she's
off chatting about what she's been up to over her three day stint
in London. Much of it has involved confirming distribution for her
film in the UK - one of the only territories it hasn't sold. "It's
hard to sell foreign films because no one here watches them" she
explains. "What's happened in the last five years is that half of
the independent distributors have gone under." This fun fact is no
surprise. When I ask whether it's harder for gay films to secure
distribution in such a climate, she responds, not sounding quite
convinced by my suggestion: "I'm gay-ish, it's true. But it's a
very weird film because it won the Audience Award at Sundance, and
showed at the Iranian Film Festival and the biggest gay and lesbian
festival in the US. It's like, what film does that?"
A brave one, certainly. Iran's public front is strictly Muslim and
conservative, and if one is to glean anything from news headlines
about the country, you might be inclined to assume that sexual
indiscretions - let alone homosexual ones - are condemned and even
harshly penalised. The film itself was filmed in Lebanon for fear
of the Iranian authorities shutting it down; not that Lebanon was a
Utopia - Maryam tells me how she had to film fake scenes while a
suspicious Lebanese military poked around the set for a while, when
they heard a 'gay film' was being shot there.
The authorities back in Iran are somewhat powerless now the film
is out - pirated copies are easily available on the streets, and
Iranian expats the world over have shown great interest in the
film. The responses have been hugely varied.
"It's really funny because Iranian men in their fifties get very
upset about this film. I've had so many of them walk out, yell at
me, get really aggressive. Or say, 'This is not Iran, this doesn't
happen!' I'm like, of course you think it doesn't happen, you're
like a heterosexual man in your fifties. You wouldn't know about
this world.
"And so much of it is regardless of being in Iran or not - it's
about young girls' desires that can't be articulated in their every
day, so they escape in their minds." Circumstance features some
scenes where the two girls indulge in fantasies of freer lives, or
raucously sing along to Bonnie Tyler as if music is somehow
liberating. "I grew up in a religious family and even in the States
the only way to escape was through reading - I used to write secret
journals. Even your dreams are so vivid because it's the only place
people can't control you. And in the film it's the same thing - the
girls can only escape when they're talking about Dubai. Which
itself is false because Dubai is hardly a place of freedom."
Despite the strict control and disbelief of 50 year old men, much
of what is seen in the film does happen in Iran. Contrary to what
many people assume, Maryam tells me that coming out is a Western
concept. "Sexuality is much more fluid in the Middle East." She
elaborates on how many Iranian women - young, old, middle-aged -
have told her that they've had similar experiences with 'best
friends'.
"For me it was very important to show the sexual aspect of the
relationship. So when people are like 'why did you have to show
that? You could have just suggested it', I was like no. It's an
issue of visibility.
"But I guess it's just different perspectives, like what does it
mean to represent a nation? Can a film represent a nation?" Maryam
continues laughing, "There are always a lot of fights at Q&As,"
going on to describe instances where audiences have ended up just
shouting at each other. "Yesterday was such a British proper
friendly Q&A," she says highly amused.
The film also deals with the intersections of power, religion and
addiction in the subtle and sensitive portrayal of the
protagonist's brother. An ex-drug addict, he is drawn to religion -
"Drug addiction's a huge issue in Iran, and people often turn from
one addiction to another." Maryam suggests that the brother turns
to religion because it's one way to regain power. "Only in Iran
that's very dangerous because religion and the state are tied
together."
The film explores how the revolution of 1979 left its mark on the
nation, branding it a religious state. "In the film the most
liberal people are the parents," says Maryam, explaining how the
revolution against the Shah in Iran was originally a socialist one,
which took an unexpected religious turn. "In films you often see
that the parents are backwards and the kids are fighting for
freedom, but in Iran it's much more complicated. So the parents
were social leftists during the revolution. The father is super
liberal and takes a very different idea of masculinity in the
Islamic world - he's kind of the maternal one.
"But the clash is that the young generation is living in a society
that they didn't build, so it's a society built on idealism that
went wrong, so you have that feeling of disillusionment by young
people." At the time the film is set, this disillusionment resulted
in apathy and a feeling of impotence. Although Maryam's film is set
before the rumblings of revolt in the Middle East, her film is
almost preemptive of the Arab Spring, with its references to Harvey
Milk and revolution.
Perhaps most importantly for a British audience, Maryam's film
hopefully dispels many myths about Iranian society. "There are a
lot of similarities between the cultures," says Maryam. "For a lot
of people who watch this film, no matter where they're from,
they're like 'I understand' or 'my dads like that', or 'I had a
brother like that'. So I really like to create relationships in the
family that are universal that speak to the world
Having been on the road for over a year, the LLGFF is the last
stop for Circumstance and Maryam is already working on a new
project. What's it about, I press? "A harem," she replies with a
coy smile. I almost shudder with the anticipation.
