She was 19 years old when she left home, left her family and left her country, Iran, to fulfill the dream that had been in her head since she was forced to wear a veil (hijab) at the age of eight to go out. street: live in freedom.
Seven years have passed since that young Iranian woman, full of fears and hopes, landed in Asturias to be herself. María is not her real name, but it is how we are going to refer to this filmmaker who, without mincing words, tells of life in Iran since a totalitarian regime, that of the ayatollahs, stole their freedom.
She speaks openly, but her family remains in Iran and recognizes that she is not yet ready for the regime to prohibit her from entering her country because that would mean never seeing them again. That is why María jealously guards, for the moment, her anonymity.
At 26 years old, he has managed to fulfill one of his dreams, studying film, and despite dedicating himself to social intervention, his audiovisual training means that his professional goal is to be able to tell stories through the lens of a camera. At the moment, she is not on the wrong track, as María premieres her first co-film at the 62nd edition of the Xixón International Film Festival (FICX), which starts on Friday, November 15.
María’s first contact with the oppressive reality that would rule during the years she remained in Iran was when at seven “they placed a veil on me that was heavier than me and that I would have to wear every time I went out into the street.”
He says that at school the atmosphere was one of war and permanent hatred, “they instill in you hatred of Israel, hatred of the United States, the regime is in constant war against the whole world,” he remembers. It was from then on that he realized everything he could not and would never be able to do in his country and that is why he decided to direct his life towards emigrating to be who he wanted to be. “They were years of preparation for a trip, the trip of my life.”
Choosing the destination country was not easy because Iran’s knowledge of the outside world is very limited. When she was little, she believed that complete happiness was achieved by arriving in New York, she admits smiling, but at sixteen she began to know something about Europe and that was when she decided that this would be the destination of her trip.
I was born and raised in a constant state of fear. If you want to stop living in fear you have to get out. The woman’s body is the battlefield of the regime
Getting the visa was not easy, she remembers, in fact the first time she was rejected, as were three of her four sisters, who therefore continue to live in Iran “a life that they did not choose.” María’s family is completed by a brother, her mother and father, and another sister who also managed to leave Iran.
She knows that she was born and raised in a constant state of fear, which is why the girls know from the beginning, just like their fathers and mothers, that the only way out for them is to leave the country, a country subjugated by a regime for which ” “The woman’s body is her battlefield.”
Woman, life, freedom
The murder of Masha Amini, the young Iranian who died in custody for wearing her veil incorrectly, in 2022, marked a before and after for María, who was in Iran because she had gone to visit her family. At Amini’s funeral in Kurdistan, a man began to scream Woman, life, freedoma slogan that had crossed the Iranian borders from Syria and that was institutionalized as a true cry that has now been two years old.
Although for María the murder of Marsha Amini was the turning point that explains the end of the silence of women in Iran, she herself says that we must look back five years, to the year 2017, to understand the beginning of the first movements women’s publics, when a young woman arrives at a square in Tehran, covered with a white veil, she takes off her hijab and waves it in the air, as a sign of protest against the imposition of the mandatory use of the veil, giving rise thereafter to the #WhiteWednesday or white Wednesdays.
Wednesday of protests in which dozens of women gathered in the squares of the Iranian capital and uncovered their heads, starting a true revolt that ended with thousands of arrests and even executions.
María defends that religion in no case can define who a person is since it is something that must remain in the sphere of private life. Consider that the veil or hijab is not framed in the cultural sphere, but rather in the religious sphere, but despite the fact that “the origin is bad”, we must stop questioning the women who wear it and not ask them why they wear it. do.
When I walk down the street and pass the police, I put my hand on my head in a gesture of putting on my veil. You think you’re over it, but your body isn’t.
She herself tells what her arrival in Spain was like, where she thought that the feeling of freedom would invade her from the first moment, although that was not the case. In fact, he remembers when he was walking down the street in the company of a strange feeling of fear whose origin he could not explain. “When I walk down the street and pass the police, I put my hand on my head in a gesture of putting on my veil. You think you’ve overcome it, but your body hasn’t,” he admits.
That is why it is so important, in her opinion, not to question women who, outside of Iran, continue to wear their heads covered. Each person’s time is very personal, it is very important not to question, explains María.
Although she is not prepared to talk about Iran and tell her story openly, and knows that that moment will end up arriving sooner rather than later, this Iranian filmmaker continues to bring the situation of women in Iran closer wherever she goes, because she believes that it is the least what it can do for all the women who remain in the country, many of them imprisoned.
“If someone had told me seven years ago that I would be telling you all this today, I wouldn’t have believed them. I know that I will end up speaking openly,” he admits.
From Amnesty International Asturias, its president, Gonzalo Fernández-Corugedo, explains that the situation in Iran has similar peculiarities to those of Afghanistan, as they are two “related” countries for having established discrimination based on gender in their legislation.
For this reason, there is a growing current of jurists who, together with Amnesty International, demand the inclusion of gender apartheid as a crime under international law, with the aim of intensifying efforts in the fight against institutionalized regimes of systematic oppression and domination, imposed by gender reasons. Two of the most significant examples of these regimes are the Taliban in Afghanistan and that of the ayatollahs in Iran.
The concept of gender apartheid was first articulated by Afghan women human rights defenders in the 1990s, in response to the subjugation of women and girls by the Taliban, and its use expanded when they regained power. last 2021. Several Iranian feminists have also argued that gender discrimination in the Islamic Republic of Iran also constitutes gender apartheid.
In this way, there is an international campaign in which movements such as Amnesty International, according to Fernández-Corugedo, or the United Nations itself, demand global recognition of gender apartheid within international legislation as a crime against humanity. , to fully extend legal protection to women, girls and LGTBIQ people.
The situation in Iran continues to worsen with the processing of the Bill to support chastity and the use of the hijab, with which, as the president of Amnesty in Asturias says, the State will increase its oppressive response on women who do not wear the hijab.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” answers María about the future of Iran, but she is clear that what the people have already advanced, regardless of what happens to the regime, she affirms, there is no going back. The movement Woman, life, freedom It is already part of the history of a country whose women have known how to rise up publicly, even at the cost of their lives. María’s wish is simple, that when she says she is from Iran she thinks of a country that longs for life and not for destruction.
#Iran #Asturias #fulfill #dream #story #María #filmmaker
