{"id":743,"date":"2009-06-28T13:46:30","date_gmt":"2009-06-28T20:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/06\/bad_and_worse_iranian_filmmake\/"},"modified":"2009-06-28T13:46:30","modified_gmt":"2009-06-28T20:46:30","slug":"bad_and_worse_iranian_filmmake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/06\/bad_and_worse_iranian_filmmake.html","title":{"rendered":"Bad and worse: Iranian filmmaker surveys the (non)choices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/feministreview.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/slumdog-millionaire-or-i-want-to-sue.html\">Lila Ghobady<\/a>, Iranian artist-in-exile &#8211; why she didn&#8217;t vote in the latest elections and why Mousavi is not a real alternative to Ahmadinejad. No matter who is the president of<br \/>\nIran, the state, she writes, would would stone her.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"banoufilm.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/banoufilm.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;\" width=\"73\" height=\"71\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As a journalist and filmmaker, I am called upon by the Islamic Republic of Iran to respect the red lines. These &#8220;red lines&#8221; include belief and respect for the Supreme Leader and the savagely unjust rules of traditional Islamic law in my country. I am expected not to write or demand equal rights. I am not allowed to make any film without the permission and without censorship by Iran&#8217;s Minister of Culture. If I did openly do all these things in Iran, I would be disappeared, tortured and raped. I would be killed as have so many women journalists, filmmakers and activists in Iran. Among those killed include <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zibakazemi.org\/\">Zahra Kazemi<\/a>, the Iranian-Canadian photo journalist who was tortured and murdered for attempting to photograph and publicize brutalities committed by the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n<p>This<br \/>\nis Iran. This is what it means to live under Ayotollah Khameini and his<br \/>\ngoons. No change is possible while Iran is controlled by autocratic,<br \/>\nfundamentalist religious despots who determine the laws of the land.<br \/>\nThere has been no real election. Candidates are all hand-picked and<br \/>\ncleared by a central religious committee. It is a farcical imitation of<br \/>\nthe free nomination\/ election process that we have pictured in the free<br \/>\nworld. There is no possibility that a secular, pluralistic,<br \/>\nfreedom-loving democratic person who loves his or her country can<br \/>\nbecome a candidate to run for president (or any other office) in Iran.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>More <a href=\"http:\/\/www.banoufilm.blogspot.com\/\">here<\/a>. Meanwhile, inside Iran, artist\/filmmaker Mania Akbari <a href=\"http:\/\/nwfilmforum.wordpress.com\/2009\/06\/23\/amin-maher-the-actor-in-abass-kiarostamis-movie-ten-and-son-of-mania-akbari-arrested\/\">writes<\/a> about the arrest of her 17-year-old son, grabbed for wearing a green armband. Badly beaten, he was released because she has serious pull. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Lila Ghobady, Iranian artist-in-exile &#8211; why she didn&#8217;t vote in the latest elections and why Mousavi is not a real alternative to Ahmadinejad. No matter who is the president of Iran, the state, she writes, would would stone her. As a journalist and filmmaker, I am called upon by the Islamic Republic of Iran [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}