Iranian short film 'Saba' Screened at Aesthetica and Grand OFF Short Film Festivals
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A socially committed short film that brilliantly manages to reconcile art and politics.
A short film that manages to touch on two controversial issues in modern Iran: the difficulty of being woman and the burning issue of gender equality.
In the course of Iran's ban on women's presence in football stadiums, Saba, 22, disguises herself as a boy to sneak into the stadium at her father's suggestion. Her father takes her to a traditional cafe instead of the stadium. Asking her how hard it is to hide her true identity, he lets her -now impersonating a boy- in on the secret that he realized he could not be a man any more when Saba was three, but he had to hide it for years to let her daughter feel having a father.
On the pretext of helping her enter the stadium, he creates a circumstance where his daughter has to put herself into his shoes, thereby hiding her true identity. He then tells her that he intends to continue living with his true identity from now on.
Mohammad Reza Khavari manages to perfectly direct two actors who, with tenderness and cruelty, stage a situation that shocks for its stirring realism. The hand-held camera follows the two protagonists making us empathize with their feelings, projecting us into their lives. The two actors then with different physicality and different expressiveness manage to immerse themselves perfectly in their roles, making the situation concrete and tangible. "Saba" therefore manages to touch on two controversial issues in modern Iran: the difficulty of being woman and the burning issue of gender equality.
A socially committed short film that brilliantly manages to reconcile art and politics.
Finally we need to mention what we believe is the best short film of the seventeenth edition of the Sedicicorto International Film Festival.
'Saba' was also present in the competition program of Grand OFF - World Independent Film Awards in Poland. Meanwhile, Siavash Cheraghipour was mentioned as a nominee for an award in the Best Actor section of the festival. The event has been held on 23-30 November 2020 in Warsaw, Poland.
Interview with Mohammad Reza Khavari, the writter, producer, and director of 'Saba' on his officially Selected short film which was screened at Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) in York, England on november 2020.
Synopsis
An Iranian girl, dressed in men's clothes, is trying to go to the stadium, without getting caught. Before going to the stadium she meets her old father who makes her a shocking confession: he would like to change sex and only in his old age is he finding the strength to accept his true nature.