Iranian film reaches Oscars

TEHRAN: Farewell Baghdad is Iran’s official entry for the 2011 Academy Awards, something its 37-year-old director says is the subject of “misunderstanding.”

“There are people who think I have been paid a lot of money to make this movie for the Iranian government. It’s clear to me that those people have not watched the film,” Mehdi Naderi said.

Far from being state propaganda, Naderi says his film, which explores the motivation and doubts of both US soldiers and Iraqi insurgents, was made in the face of unhelpful pressure from the authorities and on a shoestring budget.

“The budget for Farewell Baghdad can be compared to what Sean Penn spends on his cigarettes or what Nicole Kidman spends for a small part of her makeup,” he said.

The film follows Polish-American Daniel, a failed boxer who signs up to the army and finds himself on tense foot patrols in Iraq. After a comrade accidentally shoots a little girl in her home, both men leave their base and take off into the desert. Daniel’s life is eventually saved by Saleh, a would-be suicide bomber who hates Americans but reluctantly feels compelled to help another lost soul.

Farewell Baghdad does not paint a simplistic picture of Americans as the bad guys. Daniel is shown as a regular guy struggling to come to terms with the violent, alien environment in which he finds himself.

“I don’t want my film to be seen as a tool of soft war against the West,” Naderi said, urging viewers to look beyond the politics and see the human story where both sides, Iraqis and Americans, can learn to be friends, even in extreme circumstances.

Filmmaking is a tricky business in Iran where the government keeps a close eye on political content and checks to ensure Islamic norms, such as women’s dress code, are respected.

“It took six years to get the permission to make this film and we changed the script about 18 times to satisfy officials,” Naderi said.

“I want to show how an Iranian filmmaker can make a movie without any financial support in less than two months from a country with lots of rules and censorships.”

Iranian film analysts believe the anti-American content might improve the film’s chances of winning an Oscar.

“The Oscars set a new policy every year and usually other countries are not aware of these policies,” Shafi Agha Mohammadian, head of a state body which promotes documentaries, said in an interview with Mardomsalari newspaper.

“We believe there is currently a policy of opposing the deployment of US military forces around the world -- a sentiment also shared by Hollywood.”

Iranian film industry has entered more than a dozen films for the Oscars since 1994 when it first started participating. But among all the entries, only Children of Heaven by Majid Majidi was nominated, in 1998.

Farewell Baghdad is one of 65 films entered for the award this year.

Only five of them will receive an official nomination for the golden statuette.

However, with or without a prize, Naderi is proud to have completed his film which he says is a plea for peace, something sorely lacking in the Middle East.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2010.