Crédits

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  • Researched, Written and Directed byJean-Daniel Lafond
  • Co-ResearcherFred A. Reed
  • ConsultantAmir M. Masoumi
  • PhotographyAlberto Feio
  • Sound RecordingJean-Denis Daoust
  • Edited byBabalou Hamelin
  • MusicAhmad Bani-Jamali, Massoud Golriz
  • Produced byNathalie Barton

Produced by

InformAction

Produced with the financial help of

Canadian Television Fund created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry - CFT: Licence Fee Program - Telefilm Canada : Equity Investment Program

Qu?bec Film and Television Tax Credit - Gestion SODEC

SODEC Soci?t? de d?veloppement des entreprises culturelles ? Qu?bec

Rogers Documentary Fund

Government of Canada The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit

and the collaboration of

T?l?-Qu?bec

TV5

MAIN CHARACTERS

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Amir Masoumi, faithful to the principles of the revolution, whose commitment to a more open Islam brought him to Québec and exile. He returns in search of the “homeland of his dreams” and the mother he never kissed goodbye.

Aziz, the girl Amir left behind, childhood sweetheart and fellow militant. For all life’s hardships, Aziz has lost neither her impertinence nor her courage.

Abdolkarim Sorouch, the philosopher of Iran’s angry younger generation: his calls for the separation of politics and religion have cost him dearly.

Saïd Hajjarian, a high-ranking member of the security services under Khomeini before becoming one of the leading lights of the Reform movement and architect of President Khatami’s election victories.

Toktam, twenty years old, and eager to enjoy life; otherwise, she will leave the country.

Dr. Massoumeh Ebtekar, Vice-President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who believes in a second chance for a revolution founded on the cult of martyrdom and death.

Marjan, the interpreter whose luminous beauty beneath a white headscarf underlines in subtle ways her resistance and her freedom.

Hassan Abdulrahman, born David Belfield, Black, Muslim and American. A hero in Iran for having killed in 1980 Ali Akbar Tabatabaï, CIA liaison in a CIA plot to assassinate Khomeini. He is wanted by the FBI who spotted him in Kandahar, the film by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Press

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Un document précieux Andr? Lavoie, Le Devoir

(Un) très beau documentaire Louise Blanchard, Le Journal de Montr?al

Festivals

G?meaux Awards 2002 (Montr?al) Best Documentary

Vancouver International Film Festival 2002

Global Visions Film Festival 2002 (Edmonton)

Statement of intent

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Short summary

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A new wind of hope has sprung up in Tehran. After 18 years in exile, Amir has decided to return home. And I have decided to make a film. But in a country where the dead and martyred are more alive than the living, where the past is more present than the present, and where the invisible overwhelms the visible, anything can happen.

Long summary

“I first traveled to Iran with Amir, without ever leaving Montreal. Until the day when a new wind of hope sprang up across Tehran. After 18 years in exile, Amir had decided to return home. And I, to make a film. What seemed at first like a simple story quickly turned complex. In a country where the dead and martyred are more alive than the living, where the past is more present than the present, and where the invisible overwhelms the visible, everything could happen. Women fighting for their rights, a younger generation seething with frustration, democrats locked in political combat... all embody a thirst for freedom and a hunger for life which the conservative Mollahs in power can no longer contain. Today, in Iran, the failure of the revolution has deepened the cleft between an obscurantist Islam terrified by fear of the wave and an Islam open to the world, prepared to plunge into the wave of modernity that sets words and bodies free...”

Jean-Daniel Lafond