- Hello and welcome to a special Q&A recording
of "Bandar Band".
One of the fifty official selection titles
of the 45th Toronto International Film Festival.
This film plays as part of Contemporary World Cinema
which is generously supported by Sun Life
as part of Share Her Journey,
TIF's commitment to supporting women behind
and in front of the camera,
we're thrilled to spotlight the incredible films
by women at this year's festival
including "Bandar Band".
My name is Kiva Reardon and I am the lead programmer
of Contemporary World Cinema
and I'm thrilled to be here with director Manijeh Hekmat.
Manijeh was born in Arak, Iran.
Her directorial credits include the feature film
"Women's Prison"
"Three Women",
and "Old Road"
and "Bandar Band" is her latest film.
I would also like to thank you, our audiences
for joining us here today
as an organization still impacted by COVID
we need the support of people like you,
our audiences,
so that we can continue to present films
to future generations.
And of course like every year,
this film is eligibility for the People's Choice Awards
and you can vote for your favorite film at
tif.net/vote.
Manijeh thank you again so much for being here
for sharing this film with our audiences.
Your films often deal with social issues,
particularly women's issues.
In "Women's Prison" from 2002,
you spoke of prison being an allegory
for society.
In this film you use the floods to explore this.
Can you talk a bit about that?
The floods as an allegory
and what you were looking to explore?
(translates into Persian)
(answers in Persian)
- So I believe the floods are really an embodiment
of the certain social situation you see in the middle east
in general because the people of the region,
especially its youth
when you look at the way in which they are caught up
in particular social dynamics you will see that
it's almost as if they're always one step behind
the flood of events and situations and the tumult
that's happened in the region.
So in a sense this is an allegory
for the state of certain caught up of things
of social life and the flow of events.
(speaks in Persian)
- So in a way this is an allegory for reality
and the way in which the youth in my country
every time they don't have to do something
they have to get on board with this
with this flood,
and they have to get in it
and they have to do this despite the fact
that there are many broken bridges
and there are many difficulties
that they have to overcome
so in a certain sense
this allegory is a representative of these difficulties
of these engagements and how the way in which
if you want to proceed in life
and do things in life in Iran
you're going to have to basically get involved
with the floods.
(speaks in Persian)
- So the youth in my country they're always
basically living in their heads, in their dreams.
In a way when they come and encounter these social floods
and these
and these tumultuous situations
its almost as if they're encountering a cement wall
and a lot of times it breaks them
and so this also is a film about the encounter
between these dreams
and between these floods and realities
and I really hope that the youth in my country
as well as people in places similar to my country
will one day be able to live their dreams to the fullest.
Especially if they're doing artistic endeavors
which are particularly representative of this type
of engagement and difficulty.
- Thank you.
You also have a documentary background
your film "The Wall"
2002
is a documentary from 2004.
I'm wondering how much of your documentary background
came into play while making this film.
How much was scripted,
if anything was improvised
because the sense when you're watching the film
is that it has a real experience
of very of realism
even though it is a fiction film.
(translates into Persian)
(answers in Persian)
- So when I make a film
I do not think of the form of it in advance.
To me the form is prefigured in relationship
to the social realities that are out there.
So when I'm thinking of making a film in Iran
I cannot think of it of its formal character
separate from the social realities that they want to
portray.
So that's always a fact in my work
and especially when making this film
we had a particular,
we had a certain set of difficulties
because I was shooting the film during the Iranian holidays
and everything was shut down
and I had to get this crew and we had to work together
and I wanted everyone to have kind of a common experience
at the same time
and then there's the rest of the comment.
(answers in Persian)
- And so in this context when we're facing the floods
every once in a while we just had to stop shooting
or we had to basically in the middle of shooting
get to help people who actually needed help.
In this way the process of making the film
was very much involved with a certain form of social
activism that you see in the film.
In this way, the naturalism the realism
that you see in this film
is very much a product of the particular social necessities
that were constructed around the production of this film.
(answers in Persian)
- And if you've seen films from production,
pictures from her production process and all that
you will see that we're halfway in the sewer sometimes
you know, you're shooting this film
and we had to basically overcome many different obstacles
during the process of production.
But I think we overcame this
as a unit because we were together
and because we were facing these particular difficulties
which kind of brought us together
and then we saw the way people were in the meantime
obviously caught up in the flood
they were forlorn and we had to help them
so in a way the formal characteristics of the film
and the social necessities that are out there
came together in the production process.
(answers in Persian)
- And obviously in the meantime
there was a storyline that was the plot that we had
to actually advance in the middle of all of this
contingencies.
And so it was a matter of finding the right location.
When that wasn't available.
Overcoming it and going to the next set
and basically all of these broken bridges
and all these difficult that you see
are also allegories for the way we make this film.
But ultimately, what brought the drama of the film
and then the contingencies and the outside together
was this team that we had
and then the common vision that we had together
of how to make this film
which really made it possible.
- Thank you.
A bit on that note, the casting
the three Zs are so incredible and its really
basically just them
for so much of this film,
and they're also such talented musicians as well.
How did you go about finding them and working with them?
(translates in Persian)
(answers in Persian)
- So with respect to character Reza,
he's a very good musician and he's from the southern part
of Iran and he'd already played part somewhere else
and so we already knew him.
Then the same thing for the character of the women,
as well as of Amir Hossein who's a good play actor in Iran
as well as my own daughter, Pegah Ahangarani,
that was the stage assistant
the director's assistant
and all these things came together because we knew
that the main challenge would lie ahead of us
in the production process.
A lot of the,
it was basically we came together very quickly
and since we had that mindset
it was about going basically
and getting into the production process afterwards
which we thought we would face so many difficulties.
(answers in Persian)
- The first idea for this film came to me
about a year ago,
the first line of this film came about a year ago
when I was at this cafe and I saw this
these fathers and their daughters sing at the cafe
and while this cafe was later obviously closed
because women are not allowed to sing in Iran,
but what stood out to me at the time
was that a lot of the women from the provinces
were coming to partake in this experience
so I already had this setting in mind
and when the flood came
it was a matter of basically bringing two events
together and mixing them up.
- Thank you, so much.
I'm getting a signal from our producer
that we have to end here, unfortunately.
But, Manijeh thank you so much for sharing the film,
thank you so much for your translations as well.
Yes, really thanks so much for sharing your film
with our audiences (says thank you in Persian and laughs).
(translates into Persian)
(answers in Persian)
- And I'm very happy to be at TIFF for a second time
and this is a festival that I particularly admire
for the way it stages women and the men directors equally
and I'm happy to be a part of such an effort.
Thank you very much.
- Thank you, (says thank you in Persian).
- Thank you.