The winner of Isola Cinema 2006: Full or empty by Abolfazl Jalili
This years audience award winner is the film Full or empty by the festival guest Abolfazl Jalili. Some of his thoughts on the genesis of his film, shared on the festival press conference in Art kino Odeon in Izola, are available in the text below.
My son is studying cinema in France. Last year, when I was working on my next film Hafez in the southern Iran, he came home for holidays. I was trying to obtain the permissions for shooting from the government and the work was being delayed for two weeks. So I suggested to my son to start working on his film for the time being, and when we get all the necessary permissions, we shall start mine.
And that’s how it went, we have started shooting my son’s film with him as the director and me as a cameraman. After making 30 minutes of the film, the government still did not give us permission for Hafez. When half of this film was made, my son said: »I have to tell you something. You are helping me very much, I’ve got the feeling that you are the one making this film. Either you go and i will finish the film alone, or i will go.« I said it’s better we stay together and he replied: »Ok, but then you shouldn’t include me as a director of the film«, and he has gone back to France. At that time, I stopped making this film because it was very different from my style, but then I’ve gone back to France and told him I would really like to finish this film with him and I managed to persuade him. So we have made this film together - The first idea for the film was from my son, also the dialogues - but with my name as a director.
My films usually have very little dialogue and they are dealing with social matters. This one is a comedy and it’s different from my previous work. It has been show on many festivals before and people often said it is better than my previous style. But in any case, I hope that my previous work will also be shown here sometime.
When I started my first film 25 years ago, it was about children in the prison that has been left over from the shahs’ Pahlavi times. That film has been banned at the beginning of the revolution, and later i couldn’t get any permission for my films from the government. This is my 13th film that I have made and it was not shown, because it was made without the government’s permission. After the last election, the new government has said to me: »Bring your films and we will see what we can do. «, but since my films haven’t been shown in Iran for so many years, I am now making films for foreign audience.
I’ll tell you a little story and you’ll see why my films are not being shown. When I started making films at fifteen years of age, my family was very much against it. My father said I have to be a doctor or an engineer but I wasn’t good for studies. I went to my grandfather, who was educated in France, and I have asked him a question. I said that I am lazy, no good at learning, and very quiet, and I asked what he thinks I should become when I grow up. He replied: » You don’t have any qualities, so you should become an artist. «
I made my first film with super 8 camera and all this time my parents didn’t know I was doing it. When I wanted to shoot the title of the film, I went to the roof, cut the name of the film out of cardboard, made fire behind it and it seemed like the title of the film was burning. I started to shoot and suddenly I heard a lady voice calling me, I got scared and my camera fell down. It was the neighbor who asked me what I was doing. I said I was making a movie. She said I was making a fire. When I replied that this is not the fire, but the title of my film, she went on to ask what is the title actually was. I said it’s Owl. She said I should change it, because in Iranian culture this animal brings bad luck, so if I keep this name for my film, I am going to have bad luck with all my films to the end of my life. I said to myself that this was just plain superstition, but now – whenever my film is not permitted – I think she was right.
When I pick my cast, I like to choose actors who are poor. In the thirteen films I have made, I’ve got eighteen poor people acting, so when I get some money from my films and from the festival prizes, I can pay them and help them. But now, the tables have turned and some of them have grown up to have good material situation and so now, when I am in shortage of money, they are the ones who help me.
