The Critical Room: Iran one year after Mahsa Amini

One of this year's best documentaries tells the story of Reyhaneh Jabbari and her shocking encounter with the highly misogynistic legal system in Iran in a gripping and poetic manner. After the screening of the film SEVEN WINTERS IN TEHRAN (2023), a panel will meet for a conversation about the film and the situation in Iran more than a year after Masha Amini lost her life and the protests that have followed since then.

What is happening now, and what does the film say about women’s role in Iranian society and the country's legal system? And what significance will the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi have?

Panelists

• Moderator – Pardis Shafafi is a British Iranian anthropologist specializing on political violence.

• Steffi Niederzoll is a German director and writer. SEVEN WINTERS IN TEHRAN is her first full-length documentary film.

• John Peder Egenæs is Secretary General in Amnesty International Norway.

• Nasrin Khusrawi is a Norwegian-Iranian actress, known from Norsk-ish

Practical information

• The film is screened in Vika 1, November 15, at 5 PM.

• The conversation will take place after the screening and will be held in English.

About the film

After a work meeting, 19-year-old Reyhaneh is subjected to an attempted rape and ends up killing her assailant. When her family finds out that the man that assaulted her was connected to the intelligence service in Iran, they realize that the hope that their daughter will get out of prison alive is vanishingly small. Although the starting point is without hope, we get to see a portrait of a young woman and a family full of vitality. With, among other things, a number of mobile phone clips that have been smuggled out of Iran and the beautiful letters from Reyhaneh to her family (read in the film by Holy Spider actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi) as powerful tools, this is truly a both raw and poetic film experience.

The Critical Room

The screening is part of the section The Critical Room (DKR) which is Films from the Souths forum for debate and conversation.