#Where God is Not

[whileiamdying]

In Mehran Tamadon’s new films, Iranians remember their torture

“Where God Is Not” and “My Worst Enemy” underline the hypocrisy of the theocracy

image: andana films

One weekend in 2012, an atheist film-maker discussed secularism and the compulsory wearing of the hijab (headscarf), among other topics, with four Iranian mullahs. Mehran Tamadon, the film-maker, recorded the whole thing, hoping to initiate a dialogue with the supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The resulting documentary, “Iranian”, had the opposite effect. Iranian intelligence agents confiscated Mr Tamadon’s passport in 2012 and, on returning it, told him to leave the country. He has not returned since.

His story has become depressingly familiar in Iran, where censors ban any work considered critical of the theocracy. Dissenting directors are subject to travel restrictions, interrogations and imprisonment. Despite all this, cinema continues to be an outlet for resistance against the regime. After a long hiatus, Mr Tamadon has resumed his “social experiments”, this time turning his lens on the barbaric techniques deployed in Iran’s prisons. His two new films, “Where God Is Not” (pictured, above) and “My Worst Enemy”, have their premiere in Britain at Sheffield DocFest this month.

One weekend in 2012, an atheist film-maker discussed secularism and the compulsory wearing of the hijab (headscarf), among other topics, with four Iranian mullahs. Mehran Tamadon, the film-maker, recorded the whole thing, hoping to initiate a dialogue with the supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The resulting documentary, “Iranian”, had the opposite effect. Iranian intelligence agents confiscated Mr Tamadon’s passport in 2012 and, on returning it, told him to leave the country. He has not returned since.

His story has become depressingly familiar in Iran, where censors ban any work considered critical of the theocracy. Dissenting directors are subject to travel restrictions, interrogations and imprisonment. Despite all this, cinema continues to be an outlet for resistance against the regime. After a long hiatus, Mr Tamadon has resumed his “social experiments”, this time turning his lens on the barbaric techniques deployed in Iran’s prisons. His two new films, “Where God Is Not” (pictured, above) and “My Worst Enemy”, have their premiere in Britain at Sheffield DocFest this month.

In “Where God Is Not” three exiled Iranians re-enact their experiences of solitary confinement and torture in jail, including the notorious Evin prison in Tehran where thousands of political prisoners are detained. Mr Tamadon’s subjects are Mazyar Ebrahimi, a businessman who was accused of being a spy; Homa Kalhori, who wrote about the devastating torture she endured in the 1980s in her memoir “A Coffin for the Living”; and Taghi Rahmani, a journalist who has spent over 14 years in prison.

Each describes the horrors that their captors inflicted on them. The former prisoners remember the size of their solitary cells in paces. Mr Ebrahimi recollects how his tormentors played ping-pong after beating him in a makeshift torture chamber. To his persecutors, he implies, it was all a game. “Where God Is Not” is hard to watch, but that is the point, says Mr Tamadon in the film. He wants the abusers to confront their inhumanity when they see the documentary. They are however, unlikely to have the chance—and the film’s subjects dispute the idea that brainwashing can be countered so easily. “Stop patting yourself on the back!” Mr Rahmani tells the director.

image: andana films

In “My Worst Enemy” (see above), Mr Tamadon ends up agreeing with the naysayers. The film itself rebuts the claim that cinema can “make the interrogator doubt himself”, as the director puts it. Zar Amir Ebrahimi, a prominent Iranian actor who is also in exile (and is not related to Mazyar Ebrahimi), stages a mock interrogation of Mr Tamadon. She forces him to strip, hoses him down with icy water and makes him stand for hours. She lampoons the notion that you can conduct a meaningful conversation with a “killer holding all the power”. In any case, she asks him, in making these films,isn’t he profiting from others’ suffering? Mr Tamadon may not altogether have lost his faith in cinema’s ability to inspire change, but it is evidently wavering.

Nonetheless the visceral depiction of torture and interrogation in both films reflects a bold shift in Iranian cinema. After decades of employing subtle references to evade censors, auteurs are showing violence even though it invites allegations of “siah namayi”, or “painting black” Iran’s image. For example, in “Holy Spider” (2022), a religious extremist murders sex workers; “Law of Tehran” (2019) is a gory crime thriller. This defiance reflects the mood in Iran, where anti-government protests have continued since the death in custody last September of Mahsa Amini.

“My Worst Enemy” succeeds in capturing the process by which the abused can become the abuser. In the film, Ms Ebrahimi expresses her shock at the excitement she feels as Mr Tamadon’s interrogator. She attributes her vicious feelings to her own repeated questioning by security forces: having been denied power, she now wields it. The film insinuates that the depredations of a totalitarian regime can unleash an individual’s potential to commit heinous acts. This echoes Mr Rahmani’s warning in “Where God Is Not”: “Man is a wolf to fellow man,” he tells Mr Tamadon. “Don’t become that wolf.” ■

“Where God Is Not” and “My Worst Enemy” have their premiere in Britain at Sheffield DocFest between June 14th and 18th

[mias-back-from-the-dead]

tbh i think the funniest phenomena that's been happening in the last couple years is "youtuber, having gone too deep into the research hole, has been made an investigative journalist against their will"

[charbroiledchicken]

"you're the writer, you control how the story goes" no not really. i wrote the first sentence and then my characters said "WE WILL TAKE IT FROM HERE" and promptly swerved into an electrical fence.

[noelledeltarune]

EVERY SINGLE DAY there are MILLIONS of characters in their late 20s who get falsely accused of being father figures to teenagers when in reality the description of "weird older cousin" or "step-sibling that moved out before you were born" is 1000000x more apt

[boltlightning]

oh my god. og my god. the symbolism of it all

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just had SO much fun with the fallout tv show... i love you missus okey dokey

[lonepower]

yes i Am paying real money to make you all look at our new dog. we've had her for 3 hours and if anything happened to her I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself. her name is Tater Tot

[jeyneofpoole]

it is so strange to go to the grocery store and realize that 65 percent of the people there just hate me and will always hate me. i mean it’s not like i didn’t know before. but i don’t think people in blue states will ever understand that level of sheer hopelessness and total demoralization and i wouldn’t wish it on them. if you love or even just know a southerner please realize that we can hear what you’re saying about us and it’s not just one wall of bigots here. people are already talking about refusing aid to states like texas and florida in the case of another natural disaster and i am begging you to realize that we fucking live here too.

[moncuries]

find someone who loves you the way my girlfriend pushes me off a cliff. without hesitation. the sillies :]

[minionsuncle]

We’re haemorrhaging money on the groundskeeper, Jawbone!

Some of my favourite little bits. This is like the first time i fully color them ^.^ it was fun. Took wayy longer than it shouldve LOLL

[wolfythewitch]

Jon sketch but it’s one of those aus where he becomes a professor post eyepocalypse

[ringosmistress]

[cesiscribbles]

Some fluff~

[paintedcrows]

Biting you. Biting you. Biting-

[greelin]

it’s so crazy that i grew up in a town with like 300 people and now i live in a city with over 66,000. anything can happen