My Stolen Planet – Films – Visions du Réel

Sayyareye dozdide shodeye man

Farahnaz Sharifi
Germany, Iran | 2024 | 82 min
Swiss Premiere
Language : Farsi
Subtitles : English, French

At the age of seven, Farah realises she is living on two planets: the Ayatollah’s, and another, hidden one, where she dares to be herself. When she buys a camera, her world grows, nurtured by dance and joy. To this she adds archives left behind by families in exile, thus creating another history of her country. An edifying film about the power of images.

Farahnaz Sharifi was born on March 8, a day now dedicated to the feminist struggle. In her case – Iran in 1979 – it was three weeks after the Islamic revolution that, among other things, imposed the hijab on women. Ever since her first veiled photo, she has understood the duality imposed on her gender and cultivated everything that belongs to the private realm, to her world, filming that which surrounds her, collecting and archiving all traces of freedom that are forbidden at a time when "even joy has become a crime". These images from mobile phones and Super 8 reels serve as a remedy against the erasure of history imposed by the regime. A new way of writing about the country that links those who remain with those who either had to, or were able to, flee. In this filmed diary, each image instantly becomes a trace of history, and filming everyday life becomes a powerful act of resistance. The filmmaker's tour de force consists not only in making the voices of women from the past heard, but also in making them resonate with those of the present, showing the bodies, the struggles, and inscribing their names alongside that of Mahsa Amini. A monumental and heartrending film.

Anne Delseth

My Stolen Planet, 2024
Missing, 2016