PUNK AND CIRCUMSTANCE

Punk and Circumstance

Never mind Iran's Bullocks, here are Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy and Maryam Keshavarz

By John Esther

Bold, biting and tighter than many a recent independent film, Circumstance takes an unrelenting look at the current state of Iran and how the country's theocratic regime pushes its misery into the lives of its citizens.

Written and directed by Iranian-American filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz, the film focuses on a liberal, haute bourgeois family living in modern Tehran, Iran. The youngest of the nuclear family is 16-year-old Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri). Atafeh's best friend is Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), a 16-year-old only child orphaned since the day her notoriously dissident parents disappeared.

Typical teenagers in any circumstance, Atafeh and Shireen have to struggle their way through adolescence in a country where the Moral Police swarm underground parties and clubs, arresting those under the sway of Occidental decadence.  

Determined to live as free as possible, given their circumstances, Atafeh and Shireen explore all that official Iran tries to hide and deny, including the young girls' Sapphic urges -- something that can be punishable by death in Iran.

Although the two are better off than much of their impoverished fellow Iranians, Atafeh and Shireen dream of leaving Iran and settling in Dubai. Atafeh's liberal father can only protect his family for so long. Her mother, Azar (Soheil Parsa) has given up, taking up that most reactionary of historical tropes, nostalgia, as her coping mechanism. And Atafeh's older brother, Mehran (Reza Sixo Safai), an addict who has essentially given up one drug for another, has taken it upon himself to play Big Brother to the family by setting up camera surveillance throughout the house, including Atafeh's bedroom.

Due to the film's subversive content there was no way Keshavarz and company could have made the film in Iran. With an international cast and crew aboard, they shot the film in Lebanon.

Sure to stir many heads, Keshavarz, Boosheri and Kazemy have made a work of art that matters. Circumstance has already won numerous film festival awards.

Born in New York, Keshavarz grew up living between the US and Iran. The only daughter of eight children ("I have a very good jump shot," she quips), Keshavarz was doing her doctorate in Near Eastern Studies when 9/11 happened. Shocked and ashamed to discover mainstream media reactions to those horrific events, at the urging of one of her brothers, she moved away from Near Eastern Studies and into media. 

Born in Pakistan – as a result of coming out a week early while her mother was escaping Iran – Boosheri grew up in Vancouver, Canada, along with her younger sister who just turned 18.

Born in France, Kazemy grew up around and in Paris along with her older brother and younger sister. Her mother is French and her father is Iranian.

In this exclusive interview, Lesbian News caught up with three very talented, brave young filmmakers to get their feelings on the film, Iran, family and other various circumstances.

Lesbian News: How would you describe your childhood?

Sarah Kazemy: That is the first time someone asked me that, but it's a very, very interesting question. I had a really interesting childhood. I wasn’t into anything like dramatic arts but I've always liked art. I was raised in a multicultural house.

Maryam Keshavarz: No one has asked me that, interesting. I guess I spent a lot of my time translating, moving back and forth between two countries. During my second grade, during the Iran-Iraq war, I went to school in Iran. My uncle had been killed in the war so my mom moved me back to Iran with her along with my younger brother. I remember explaining to different people in each country what it was like in the other one. I would smuggle some Western goods to my cousins [Laughs].  Western media was forbidden so I would smuggle magazines in my underwear and backpack.

LN: And you were getting your doctorate in Near-East Studies when you decided you wanted to write and direct films.

MK: Right. I was in Michigan, doing my doctorate with a focus on Iran. Then I was on sabbatical. I was stuck in California. Then 9/11 happened and I remember reading a headline just hours after the attack that said: "Those Bastards." I thought, "Wow, this is very reminiscent of another era" – my childhood. I made a couple experimental, 16 mm films and my brother suggested I go into media. I sent those films, a short story and a bio to New York University and I won the Tisch scholarship -- a full scholarship for three years.

LN: Do you have a couple of favorite filmmakers?

MK: Depends on the day [Laughs]. Right now I like Atom Egoyan, Lynne Ramsay, Wong kar wai…My background is much more in international cinema.

LN: When did you first realize you wanted to get into acting?

Nikohl Boosheri: I was always interested in drama, but I was always too shy to do it extracurricular. But in high school we had such a unique drama program I became immersed in it. I did about 30 plays by the time I finished high school.

SK: I still don’t know [Laughs]. I just fell into it.

LN: Are there actors you found inspiration from?

NB: That's a good question. Yes. I grew up loving Kate Winslet and Vivian Leigh. I probably saw Gone with the Wind a hundred times. I wanted to be Scarlett O'hara so bad. Then there's Kate as Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic. There are those female harrowing roles you just want to be.

LN: Why did you want to make Circumstance?

MK: It started as my thesis film for NYU. I had a professor who always chided, "Do what you know."

LN: How much of it is autobiographical?

MK: Some of the film is based on my adolescence in Iran: navigating the underground world of parties with my cousin. I'm much more the dorky Iranian-American than the characters in the film. In Iran I would go with my cousins and be much more afraid, saying, "Isn't partying breaking the law." I was much more hesitant. They were much more the renegades. I always looked up to them. I was in awe of the women there. In terms of the family structure – like the father who went to Berkeley and tried to create a liberal sanctuary – it is based on my uncle who was at University of Massachusetts when the Iranian Revolution of 1979 happened. While everyone was coming to American from Iran during that time my uncle went back to take part in the protests. He was very idealistic. Then he got stuck in Iran. I was always fascinated how someone so liberal would keep up. How would he raise his family? What was it like to try and keep it altogether?

LN: How did you get involved in Circumstance?

NB: It was actually a fluke. I had no intention of getting into film – at least until I graduated. An agent contacted me and the first audition I went to was Circumstance. Actually I had to send a tape to Maryam. A month later she called me and offered to fly me to Toronto and I jumped on that opportunity.

LN: Sarah, this was your first role ever. How did you get involved?

SK: When Maryam was in Paris auditioning people my friend asked me to audition for this "women director." He said, "I know you're not really into acting but she doesn’t mind. Just come and see how it goes. It's always nice to have new experiences." Maryam sent me the audition scene really late – around midnight and the audition was 8 a.m., in the other part of Paris. I was actually too stressed to be stressed. I don’t know how it went but I was lucky enough for her to call me back.

LN: What did you think of the screenplay when you first read it?

NB: I remember being very shocked, moved and excited.

SK: Since it was my first role, everything was very challenging and exciting. I was going to take this risk. I wouldn’t say I didn’t care what could happen, but I was going to do it.

LN: What do you think you have in common with Atefeh?

NB: I don’t want to get too much into it, but when I first read the script I thought she was really out there as a teenager and that if I had grown up in Iran the challenges she faces would have been the ones I would have faced. She's a strong person, but it's so hard for her to accept how things change around her. She can no longer recognize her family or friends. She was a troublemaker and so was I. I saw so much of her in myself.

LN: What do you have in common with Shireen?

SK: I wouldn’t say I have much in common with her, but I want to say I truly understand her. I've understood her choices because I understand her circumstance. I truly love her in a way; I know her, but we live in such a different world. I can be very introverted and I can be alone with my thoughts – that's what I have in common with her.

LN: How does your family feel about the film?

NB: When I told my mom about the film she said, "Oh my God, Nikohl. Do you have to make a film like this?" When she went to my father with her concerns regarding the film's subject matter he said, "You should just thank God she's not really doing these things with a man yet." [Laughs.]

SK: My parents didn’t really know. They were really against me stopping my studies. They expected me to be somebody else – a lawyer or a surgeon. So Iranian. We didn’t really talk about my new life. They just have to accept that I make my own choices. Then my mom saw the film. I hadn’t told her much about it so she was shocked [Laughs]. She wasn’t expecting me; I'm very different from Shireen. She was shocked – as a mom, and as part of the audience. But she's getting better and I'm happy. My sister really liked it and that's very important to me.

LN: How does your family feel about the film made about them?

MK: It's highly fictional. They're just the inspiration. A lot of my family has never seen the film. For the ones in Iran, to protect them, I've never spoken of the film. My brothers love the film. On the other hand, my mom is quite religious and she was taken aback by the film. After we had this amazing standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival 2011 I was on my way to a party with my mom and I asked her, "So, Mom, what did you think of the film?" Her response was, "You did this to hurt me." It's easier to change the world than it is to change your family.

LN: It sounds like the part in the film when Atafeh and her father are hiking and he looks up to the sky and says, "God, do you see how she talks to her father?"

MK: Then she says, "What's God have to do with it?" [Laughs]. One of the thinks I wanted to cover in the film is how we often think that liberalism is divided by generations with the older generations being more conservative. In the film the most liberal person is Firouz whereas the brother embraces fanaticism.

LN: But the way you set it up, it seems everyone in the film (or Iran) goes through his or her rebellion, yet ultimately, to some extent or another, accepts, or succumbs, to the oppression. Or they migrate.

MK: Well, there are major issues in Iran right now, but what the film was trying to evaluate was that people can create sanctuaries in any environment. The house was a sanctuary for 30 years until the brother starts to infiltrate it with surveillance – when the state comes into the home. That's when things start to fall apart. The beauty of the film is the search for joy even though they live in a theocracy, a very repressed environment. They've learned the rules and they've learned to work the system, but then their personal relationships are compromised.

LN: Right, ultimately they are forced down or out. Eventually the system gets to you.

MK: It can, yes. There are still points of resistance throughout the film, but ultimately, for this particular family, nobody wins. Even the oppressive state doesn’t win.

LN: One of the ways you show the family as a sanctuary is the colorful interiors as opposed to the drab exteriors – except down at Moral Police HQ; but then it becomes increasingly dark because there is no longer an inside or outside.

MK: The exteriors are much more monochromatic. The home is very lush. By the third act there is a whole color palette shift.

LN: In terms of traditional GLBT cinema, that is a bit different from what we see. It is usually the home where the oppression is worst and outside, at least in the city, where the potential for freedom is stronger.

MK: Right. I guess it is kind of the reverse.

LN: You just mentioned surveillance. Can you discuss the issue of surveillance in Iran?

MK: People are being watched. From the first five minutes in the film you know that. Remember, this film was just written before the green wave. We were in preproduction during the Green Wave.

LN: And people were using their cameras to catch the state in action.

MK: There was surveillance and cop surveillance. The phones were capturing the violence then, in turn, they became even more repressive.

LN: What kind of future do you see for Iran?

MK: That's a complicated question. Regardless of what happens, a seed has been planted. I never thought in my lifetime I would see millions of people marching in the street. It's not just a couple of kids marching in the street; it's millions of people from all gender, class and age groups. The protests were so peaceful – in the beginning.

LN: Giving the mixed history of the United States and Iran -- especially since the CIA-backed Mordad coup of the early 1950s – do you think the U.S. Government really wants democracy to flourish in Iran?

MK:  [Laughs.] That's a complicated question. Is democracy the reason the U.S. is in the Middle East? The reason why fundamentalism and Islam have spread so rapidly throughout the Middle East is the idea that Islam is contrary to Western imperialism. Saudi Arabia is the United States number one partner. Saudi Arabia is hardly a democracy.

LN: It is the most oppressive country in the region. Speaking of the region, what were some of the challenges you faced shooting the film in Lebanon?

MK: That's another hour of interviewing [Laughs]. Lebanon is a very liberal country. It really is the center of the Gay Mecca in the Middle East. There are gay bars, gay clubs. It looks like Iran. It's very compact. We had to censor the script when we sent it to the censorship board. We had a few very hairy situations. The most important thing is that people really believed in the film. People weren’t doing it for the money.  

LN: How do you think making the film changed you?

NB: It took two months of our lives to film it. We were in Beirut. It was the first time I ever traveled alone. It was the first time I was without my family or friends, doing something on my own, for myself. We did a year of dialect coaching before we even filmed it. I was cast in 2008. It was a major process. Sarah is now my best friend. She just spent three months with me in Vancouver. Hopefully I'll be going to France to live for her awhile. The crew, we all worked very hard just to make this film. I had a very Christian woman come up to me in Salt Lake City crying, saying, "I loved the film, but it goes against everything I believe in. I am torn, but I feel like this is an important movie." When people come up to you saying stuff like that you don’t really know how to react. It feels wonderful that people can watch a film and maybe it changes the way they see Iranians or young females and their growing sexuality. People are seeing and understanding what we understood while making the film. I know we're not curing cancer or anything, but that's how we felt while filming this movie.

SK: It's changed my life. I don’t see my future the same way I used to think about it. I fell in love with acting and the [whole process of filmmaking]. It's changed the way I watch movies.

LN: Have you encountered any alarming hostility toward the film?

NB: When you choose to be an actor there are roles and choices you're going to be confronted with. There are some scenes that are more risqué than others. Just knowing you're playing an Iranian character in Iran gives you a sense of being cautious and being justified about everything. Some people say it's a "soft porn film," which is very shocking for me since the most we do is kiss for like three seconds [laughs]. It was so sporadic. There's the fantasy scene and it's so obvious it's their first times. They're innocent and it's awkward.

SK: In Paris, actually. A person in the audience was against anything that's against the Iranian government.

MK: Sure, of course. I would like to say it is only Iranian men in their 60s [Laughs]. In the US I faced some conservative crowds. Often men in their 50s and 60s will say, "I'm from Iran and I've never seen this." And I say, "Of course you've never seen this, you're a heterosexual man in your 60s. It's not exactly your experience." [Laughs.]

LN: I imagine you do not foresee the film screening in Iran anytime soon?

MK: Definitely not. It will go to underground DVD.

LN: What can you tell us about your upcoming projects?

NB: I really need to get on the stage again. I might have another play in the works, but it's just a matter of picking the right project. I didn’t have a strong interest in film before but I would like to pursue film and see what it has to offer. I would like to keep doing projects that are as moving as Circumstance.

SK: I've done another movie after Circumstance. It will come out in 2012. It's more action than drama. It's a modern fairy tale we shot in Morocco.

LN: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews where you discuss yourself and your work? Do they serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?

MK: I don’t know. It's interesting to find some back story and contrasts. Nikohl, who plays the rich Atefeh, is from a working class family in France.