A different kind of Iranian film: Iranian Women Unveiled

ABSTRACT My feature-length documentary, Iranian Women Unveiled, is a portrayal of the lives and struggles of six influential Iranian women activists, now living in exile, engaged in a number of areas of political and social activism. The choice of women activists was a deliberate attempt to leverage an empowered representation of women in cinema, as a polar opposite to the dominant patriarchal and misogynistic portrayals in Iranian cinema. My film applies a particular perspective in the representation of women in cinema around a number of key themes, such as women's bodies, women's voice, dance, music and use of colour. The cinematic forms and devices that I employ aim to allow an actually existing, empowered image of the Iranian women to emerge. The film aims to challenge the dominant patriarchal portrayals of Iranian women, primarily in Iran’s official cinema, but also the cultural-relativist representations prevalent in many mainstream films in the West. My documentary is an application of this counter-perspective, contributing to novel ways of representing women, gender and sexuality in cinema, from a modern, emancipatory and feminist perspective. The screenings of the trailer and episodes of the film have already generated lively discussions within the academic community.