Berlinale film stars show solidarity with Iran protesters
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The Berlinale has in 2023 boycotted Iranian film institutions, but is showing a number of films by independent directors from the country.
PHOTO: REUTERS
BERLIN – Dozens of actors and film-makers gathered on the Berlinale’s red carpet last Saturday to show solidarity with anti-government protesters in Iran, with one exiled Iranian film director predicting the imminent fall of the country’s government.
“The regime’s time is over,” Sepideh Farsi said on the red carpet. “It’s time for change – I think people really grasp that.”
Some of those present at the demonstration – including Farsi, whose animation film The Siren opened last Thursday, and the award-winning director Farzad Pak – held up placards emblazoned with the Kurdish revolutionary slogan, “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (Woman, Life, Freedom).
Others made victory signs or chanted the slogan as they punched the air with their hands.
The demonstration in Berlin came after protests flared up overnight last Thursday in Iran, with streets in a number of cities filling with people demanding the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
The Berlinale has in 2023 boycotted Iranian film institutions, but is showing a number of films by independent directors from the country, with Iran’s quest for freedom one of this year’s main themes.
Last Saturday, actor-director Sean Penn premiered Superpower, his admiring portrait of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at war, saying the movie was also a wake-up call about Americans’ own fragile democracy.
The two-time Oscar winner was in Kyiv making a documentary about Mr Zelensky’s rise from comedian to national leader when Russia invaded nearly one year ago and the two built up what they both call a close friendship.
“It was a very moving way to start to get to know somebody,” Penn said. “Aside from meeting my children at their birth, the highlight of (my life was) meeting and sensing a great human heart of courage that day with that man.”
Meanwhile, South Korean star Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine, 2007) drew on her own insecurities as a parent to play a single mother and professional killer in action thriller Kill Boksoon, she told Reuters ahead of the film’s premiere at the film festival.
Jeon plays Boksoon, a highly skilled contract assassin in the Netflix movie. She has managed to keep her profession a secret, but with her teenage daughter growing up fast, balancing work and home life becomes an increasing challenge.
“I relate to the character a lot,” Jeon said. “As a mother and raising a whole person, a human being, it’s very tough because you yourself are unstable, insecure, and there’s so much that you just don’t know,” she said. REUTERS