Underground Iranian film and music
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010“I had a feeling that things were about to happen. They were so tense, they were so agitated, in a revolting state of mind. I wanted to use the film to scream against the situation, scream like all the members of the bands I worked with. I wanted to scream along with them, making this film as a statement against the brutal situation we were all under.” -Bahman Ghobadi on young people in Tehran, June, 2009
The script for filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi’s No One Knows about Persian Cats was rejected by the Iranian Ministry for Islamic Culture and Guidance for three years before Ghobadi took a risk: making an unlicensed film. Shot in just 17 days with a digital S12K camera (all 35mm equipment is owned by the state), Cats is a faux-documentary following two young indie rock musicians (real life band Take It Easy Hospital) around Tehran, fusing humor with the reality of life as an underground musician in Iran.
Here’s a clip from the film, Take It Easy Hospital playing “Human Jungle”:
Although I have yet to see No One Knows about Persian Cats (US release set for April 16!), I find Ghobadi’s statement against censorship and cultural repression (of both music and film) particularly interesting when examined contextually. The film was co-written by Hossein Abkenar and Ghobadi’s fiancée, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi. Saberi was arrested in Iran in January, 2009 and held for months on charges of espionage, initially facing an eight year prison sentence. During her imprisonment, Ghobadi published a letter regarding Saberi’s situation which you can read here.
She was released just as Cats was about to premiere in Cannes, where the film received the Un Certain Regard prize, a grant to aid distribution in France for an innovative and daring work. Upon returning to Iran from Cannes, Ghobadi was arrested and held for seven days, accused of “severe criticism” of the Iranian Government during the film festival. Ghobadi was even offered between $1-2 million in exchange for all the material and rights to the film. He refused, and was ordered to leave the country.
For more on the film’s plot, I suggest this New Internationalist article. The Village Voice interviewed Ghobadi eight days after his release from prison, four days after Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election. In the interview Ghobadi says, “The youth have seen how they can hurt the government. This three or four days has shown them that they can rush out to the streets and say what they want and take it all in their own hands. And if the government is not going to listen to them, it is going to be a bloody future. The government cannot control the people any longer..and this was the last big lie. The people were ready to erupt.”
And in case you were what the film title means, it refers to an Iranian law that bans cats and dogs from being outdoors.









