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("Faith Hymn" by Beautiful Chorus)
- A legend in the Talmud says
that when a child is born, it carries a candle over its head
as a symbol that it knows everything.
In the moment of its birth,
an angel blows the candle out
and the child forgets it all.
During the path of its life
it must learn to remember everything it had forgotten.
(speaking in foreign language)
("Learning" By Perfume Genius)
- Mommy.
It was 1991.
My mom Nargess was 26 years old,
and she was living alone with me in Germany.
Momma.
I also had a father,
but he couldn't be with us for some reason,
that's why we would send him this video message to Iran.
Iran was the country we were from,
but I could neither remember Iran nor my father.
* Until you take your last breath *
* But you
- Two years later,
I just came back from summer camp, my mother told me,
"Your father Kasra, is coming to see us soon."
And there he was, standing on the other side of the street,
dressed all in white.
And I ran into his arms as if I had just seen him
before the summer break.
The truth was last time I did see him
it was in one of the most horrible places in the world.
But, of course, I didn't know about that.
* No one answer your prayers
* Until you take off that dress *
- Today, I'm 35 years old
and I know my father couldn't be with us
because he was trapped in a political prison called Evin.
I also know
I was born in that prison.
And that's basically everything I know.
I mean I know I'm an actress
and I'm pretty good at telling other people's stories,
but I'm at a point in my life
where I don't wanna hide behind those stories anymore.
I wanna find out what my story is.
But where in the world to start?
(speaking in foreign language)
For a long time I had been upset with my work as an actress.
I was tired playing those cliches of refugees
who fled from made-up horrors.
I had been a refugee myself
and I had a story to tell.
I mean born in prison.
Who in the world is born in prison and why?
The problem was, I had no clue what my story was
and finding it out, actually terrified me.
What I knew were bits and pieces
my mother with publicly speak about.
Yeah, that's my mom today.
(speaking in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
It is really true, I mean what a story.
My mom was somehow released from prison,
fled Iran as a single mother, wrote a PhD in psychology,
and became the first female migrant candidate
for mayor in Germany.
It's crazy.
20 years ago she met my stepdad Kurt,
and gave birth to my sister Mira.
(audience applauding)
(speaking in foreign language)
That's my stepdad Kurt.
He's a psychoanalyst and a child of Holocaust survivors.
He's a famous researcher on how trauma is being passed on
from one generation to another.
Kurt's work has always been a huge inspiration to me.
Since 15 years, he meets with Shoah survivors every week,
listening to them, supporting to them,
eating lots of cake and sharing a couple of jokes.
- She's so young.
(speaking in foreign language)
She's so young.
(speaking in foreign language)
- My sister Mira is much younger
and was born with a disability.
So in my family we say we have got them all.
People with disabilities, foreigners and Jews.
My mom and I get along super well,
but we just can't talk about the past.
Three decades of silence
and not once I had asked her,
"Mom, what has happened to us in prison?"
And not once did she tell me,
"Maryam, I think we should talk about something."
On a summer holiday I took my courage in both hands
and told her about my plan to do a movie about our story.
I even showed her a trailer I had made
and hoped that it would open up the conversation.
That we would finally talk and cry a little
and everything would be said.
And in fact, she was very moved,
but eventually the conversation did not come up.
(speaking in foreign language)
It was too painful for my mom to talk
and at the same time, I couldn't go on living in denial
of the questions I had anymore.
I had been in psychoanalysis for years
and I knew I was pretty much sane
and this wasn't about me finding myself.
Something about my birth was just not personal
and I had to find out what it was.
So what is it that I do know?
I found this picture of my mom before she fled Iran.
She was 19 and already my mom
and that wasn't a costume.
She had no choice whether she wanted to wear that or not.
The law forced her too.
In school I learned that my parents grew up in a monarchy
and the ruler and dictator of the country was the Shah.
Under the Shah, my parents were allowed
to wear whatever they liked.
But everything else, like freedom of speech, was denied.
- Could a journalist in Iran
dare to criticize His Majesty?
- He could, but I don't think that he would.
- The Shah and a small minority of the country
lived in fame and glory,
while the rest of the country, was struggling with poverty.
My parents were against that.
They listened to John Lennon, read Marx
and sang "The Internationale."
(lively music)
And they were not alone.
Massive protest spread around the country.
(crowd chattering) (cars honking)
That's when my parents met, decided to marry
and became revolutionaries.
In 1979, the Shah was overthrown,
but the just and free society they were fighting for
would soon become their biggest nightmare.
(speaking in foreign language)
Khomeini, the so-called religious leader
and just another dictator, proclaimed the Islamic Republic.
(speaking in foreign language)
Tens of thousands of political opponents
got persecuted, tortured and killed.
In 1983, my parents were arrested too, and me,
who was still in my mother's belly.
Now what happened to us there is the missing piece
of our family story.
My dad spent seven years in prison
waiting for his death penalty.
He also survived the massacre of 1988
when thousands of political prisoners were murdered
in less than a few months.
After his release, he sent me this video message from Iran,
trying to overcome the distance creatively.
(soft music)
(speaking in foreign language)
(fanfare music)
(speaking in foreign language)
That's the first picture of me taken after prison.
It's kind of cute, but what does that child know
that I don't remember?
(speaking in foreign language)
Interestingly, my mom recommended
I should meet our friend Shadi Amin.
She was a human rights activist, a researcher
and had interviewed hundreds of female prisoners.
She had a special technique of working with them
and had a agreed to work with me too.
(speaking in foreign language)
(beeping)
(lively music)
I wouldn't give up so easily.
I knew of someone else who could maybe help.
My aunt Sima in Paris.
She was the first one we met after our arrival in Germany.
She was my father's sister
and I spent most of my summer holidays
with her and my cousins and friends.
(speaking in foreign language)
(vehicle humming)
(speaking in foreign language)
This is Maryam, my mom's oldest friend.
They were cell mates in prison.
She also lives in Paris, and is a therapist too.
On the weekends she works voluntarily
in a gardening project.
She's the only one I know of who was present at my birth.
(hoe clanging)
(speaking in foreign language)
My mom was angry.
Maryam had called her after our meeting
and apparently told her that I was confused
and obsessed with prison.
(speaking in foreign language)
My mother wasn't sure this film was a good idea.
And I stared believing it too.
I was about to cancel my last meeting with Chahla Chafiq,
the famous sociologist and expert
on the ideological prison system in Iran
when she urged me to come meet her.
(speaking in foreign language)
(elevator chiming)
(traffic humming)
(horn honking)
(woman laughing)
(speaking in foreign language)
(luggage clicking)
(speaking in foreign language)
(soft music)
Chahla not only encouraged me not to give up my quest,
but also told me that in Florence
there was a feminist conference held every year
of Iranian women living in exile.
Not a few of them were former political prisoners
who would maybe be willing to talk to me.
But I had to introduce my project and myself.
I had never publicly spoken about my birth
and the idea of talking in front of them
in my disastrous Persian seemed really overwhelming.
But I had no other choice,
and they seemed kind of nice.
(singing in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
(speaking in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
(speaking in foreign language)
Okay, I'm going to speak in English now.
So I know how difficult this undertaking is.
The whole project still seems to be a very dark
and stubborn dark hole
where a lot of puzzle pieces are missing
and, therefore, I reach out to you,
specifically the mothers and children of that generation,
to talk to me.
Me and my team will be here for the next three days.
(speaking in foreign language) Thank you.
(audience applauding)
(speaking in foreign language)
(singing in foreign language)
(speaking in foreign language)
(chanting in foreign language)
(laughing)
(speaking in foreign language)
(plastic bags rustling)
(speaking in foreign language)
So the child of my father's executed friend
was probably still in Iran.
Iran, the one place I couldn't go
without risking being imprisoned again.
In Florence, I hadn't met a single other child
of my generation.
But I was given some contacts.
I wondered who they had become,
what they knew of their story
and if their mom's had ever talked to them.
Unfortunately, most of them didn't wanna talk
in front of the camera.
But there was one girl who finally agreed to talk to me.
The night before our interview in my hotel room,
she left me a voicemail.
(speaking in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
In Hanover, a conference
of former political prisoners was held.
It was the hardest one to get in.
(speaking in foreign language)
The experience had made them very skeptical
of anyone trying to attend their gathering,
but with the help of my father we were allowed in.
We had explained our intentions
and still once we arrived they asked me again and again
who I was and what I was doing.
The Iranian regime until today sends their secret service
to all kind of places, so their fear was not unreasonable,
but I was starting to feel really pressured
trying to tell the story with all these restrictions.
(speaking in foreign language)
(raindrops tapping)
So I was standing outside this conference
and somewhere really close to me was a child of prison
not wanting to enter the building, very strange.
At some point, I contacted Shadi, our friend,
and asked her for help to find any other child,
no matter where it in the world, except for Iran, of course.
(speaking in foreign language)
(soft music)
(singing in foreign language)
(birds chirping)
I had a dream last night that I was arrested with my father
and sent to prison.
We were in a cell when guards with machine guns entered.
Each of them pushing a child
and pointing their guns at them.
I was convinced they were trying to scare us.
But then suddenly, one of the guards pulled the trigger
and shot the child in front of him.
I turned to my father to see if this was really happening
when one of the guards stepped towards me
and shot me in the head.
I realized that I was about to die
and that everything was ending
and while I was accepting my death, I thought of my mom
and that I still had to tell her
that life actually is beautiful.
(birds chirping)
Was this dream giving me clues to some hidden knowledge?
Did other children of prison have dreams like this too?
There was a child who had publicly spoken
about her family's persecution.
Back in 2012, in The Hague,
where a people's tribunal took place
families of executed political prisoners
organized the Iran tribunal
investigating the massacres of the 1980s.
One of the witnesses was Chowra Makaremi,
a child of my generation.
- I was eight months old when my mother was arrested.
I was two years old.
So she was arrested on 15th of June, 1981.
I was two years old
when my aunt was executed in October 1982.
I was eight years old when my mother was executed
in the massacre of the summer of 1988.
What maybe I can say to the court is
what my grandfather wrote.
I quote him.
"We learned she had been tortured at length.
"Her spine was cracked.
"The eardrum of her left ear had been punctured
"and there were burn marks on several part of her body.
"She had been whipped with electrical cables,
"plunged into a pool of freezing water,
"wires had been wrapped around her breasts
"and she had been given electric shocks.
"She had been burnt with cigarettes.
"Her teeth had been smashed.
"Boiling water had been poured
"into the sensitive parts of her body.
"She had been hung upside down by the feet."
That's all I have to say.
- Again, sorry, and thank you very much.
The evidence speaks for itself.
It constitutes overwhelming proof
that systemic and systematic abuses of human rights
were committed by and on behalf
of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Graves of executed prisoners stretching out
as far as the eye can see.
Men were arrested at 10 in the morning and dead by 11.
Rows of prisoners were shot by firing squad.
The legacy of abuse is extensive
and inevitably persists to the present day.
The commission concludes
that these violations of human rights
were devised, instigation and executed
by a single, central authority and as such,
the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran
is the only authority responsible for these acts.
- Yes, that's my mom.
She was there back in 2012 when the tribunal was held.
Even though it was only a symbolic tribunal,
since the perpetrators were absent,
it was a milestone for the survivors.
But until today, the Iranian regime remains in power
and denies all responsibilities.
(singing in foreign language)
(audience applauding) (audience cheering)
(speaking in foreign language)
I traveled back to Paris to meet brave Chwora
where she was working on a documentary
on the massacre of 1988.
Yeah true, that's an interesting parallel.
(chanting in foreign language)
- They are exactly in the state of mind
that I was kind of pointing or denouncing.
I think there is so much guilt.
I think one of the key
to the anger, to the reluctance to talk,
is the guilt, is the guilt
because they survived, because they lost the revolution
and all the time they're thinking
of how could have things been different.
The people who were children like us
they live with this burden,
but most of them don't want to talk about it.
It doesn't mean it's not present in their minds
and in their inner life, and even if it's not present
then there's a freezing silence
and so they don't hear that, but they don't much else.
And that's why I called my part the crossing,
because you have to cross through that
and then when you cross, then it's behind you
and you're not afraid of ghosts anymore
because before I was, before I read my grandfather's memoir
I knew that he was talking about my mother's imprisonment
and tortures and execution,
so I knew there was something really terrible
behind this door, I didn't want to open it,
but it was terrifying me,
but then once I open it and I saw it,
yes it's terrifying, it's gruesome, it's awful,
it's very painful, but you can name things.
You can put names.
It has a shape, but I would say
as children of defeated political opponents,
who can each of them totally stand on their feet,
but collectively they have been defeated,
we are programmed to do well.
We are their resistance.
We are their answer to the society.
Like, you know look.
And that's the point.
So we all kind of, we have become good adults,
good responsible, successful adults
and that's the answer of this generation to raise.
Maybe it's not on purpose,
but maybe we also feel that responsibility
to raise an army of successful, beautiful people
to show okay this is what we wanted to do.
(car humming)
- Chowra herself had not
been imprisoned as a child.
But I had heard about Nina in London,
who guess what, was a psychologist too.
- Thank you, that's really nice.
Thank you very much.
It's beautiful.
- Perfect thank you. - Thank you.
I think my experience of time in prison
it would only be one.
When I was about 12, 13, I just kind of had
the same kind of dream over and over again.
So the dream was that
is this baby is held by this man
and the baby is crying hysterically,
like really, really just shouting and screaming
and it's a woman in front of her who's just being tortured
and there's just blood everywhere
and they're just hitting her and hurting.
She's in a lot of pain and just blood everywhere really.
So I went and woke my mum up and said,
"Mum, I keep having these really horrible dreams.
"Well, same dream.
"What is this?"
And she goes, "Oh who told you?"
kind of like, who told me what?
So anyhow, when I told her what I had seen,
she was like, "Yeah that's what happened."
She expresses her experiences, but it's never been where
like how has that made your feel?
I see the impact every day.
She won't really tell me.
- Just because of what you were saying,
I don't know if you've heard
about the psychological phenomena
that's called scenic memories.
- Yeah, uh-huh. - So my stepdad is working.
That's like his field and when I was 22,
I was in Morocco and I was taking,
'cause I have no memories of prison at all,
like zero, nothing, nothing, nothing,
but then I was like 22 and I was in south Morocco
taking a bus up to the north
and then they were playing music
and I was like getting really kind of,
starting to sweat and being super stressed out
and I normally didn't have that,
i didn't understand what was going on
and then I realized that I was really bothered
by the sound to the extent
that I started using a towel around my head
'cause I was like I can't breathe anymore,
I'm losing my mind in here.
So I went to the bus driver and they turned off the music
'cause I was like screaming at him,
turn off the music.
Anyway, months later I told this thing to my dad
and he told me that one of, you know probably,
it was Qu'ran.
(speaking in foreign language)
So yeah, they said one of the acoustic torture methods
was to play that. - Really loudly.
- Real loud constantly.
So that was a first time I was like oh my God,
so there is some kind of memory or something engraved.
- They look good.
- Here you go.
- Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much, that's good.
I think it came to a point when I realized
a lot of my relationships were kind of like
I became the mother and a lot of the times,
the guys were quite, they come from a very kind of,
not a very pleasant background as well.
(laughing)
And then you kinda just wanna go and save them.
My mother always says you've got it on your forehead
if you have issues, psychological issues,
please come this way.
And it's unbelievable, it's true.
And I think yeah,
maybe it's we think they could relate to us
because we think our life wasn't normal
and our life wasn't normal really.
Maybe we think they could connect with us.
And we clutch onto them
and then we realize Jesus Christ what have we done?
- Well, I think if we wanna change
what's written on the forehead.
Until now if it says all psychopath men towards us,
now we wanna change that into healthy.
I don't know.
- Well proportionate, mentally stable,
psychologically. - Balanced.
- Balanced men, please walk towards me.
And anybody else who has even
an ounce of stress or
what's the right word?
- Trauma, traumatic past. - Traumatic past.
No self-esteem, no confidence.
Please do not come towards me.
Take a left and go straight down.
(laughing)
(singing in foreign language)
- Nina had gotten into prison
when she was almost two.
But I really wanted to find a child
who was also born in prison.
What would it be like to meet someone
who experienced life for the first time
at the same gruesome place where my life started?
Would we have something in common?
After months of searching, I had found one
on the other side of the world in California.
Sahar Delijani, the author of the book,
"Children of the Jacaranda Tree."
She was born only two months after me,
so there's a chance that we even met before,
like baby prison buddies.
(speaking in foreign language)
- That's fun.
I wanna do it next time.
- Yes, you can.
So the first chapter in your book is a birth in prison
and in order to research that,
you did talk to your mother, right?
And you said that you kind of grew up with knowing,
of course, who was born in prison or not,
but did you ever have that sit down conversation
about your own birth with your mother?
- We were on flight to Canada, going on vacation
for a few days and we were sitting
and the seatbelt sign came on
and then I thought okay, so this is the moment.
She can't get up, I can't get up.
Let's talk about it.
So she was just sitting right next to me
and then I was taking notes.
So yeah, that's the moment when she told me the story.
Something she doesn't really,
she had never really talked about to anybody you know?
But she has these moments when all of a sudden
she says something.
She was telling me the other day
how she got angry at someone
because of the thing that person was saying
and how her hands were shaking
and she said, "Never in my life my hands shook.
"Never, not even in prison
"when they would call us for interrogation.
"Everybody was like okay, come on get dressed."
My mom was like, "I would always say,
"they're the ones who want to talk to me.
"I don't want to talk to them.
"They wanna talk to me, so they should take,
"I can take my time, they can wait for me.
"So I would just wear my socks and put my blindfold on."
She would talk about it as if she was getting ready
to go to a party or something, you know?
Then she's like, "But this woman, this person."
- Yeah, my mother, she would never refer to prison,
but now slowly since I'm doing this movie
she sometimes says something and there was one time.
She smokes, so my mom stopped smoking
and then she starts smoking.
Like I did always, but now I stopped for two years
and she said, I said, "Mom you know the smoking
"why do you do it and stop it and blah blah blah."
And she said, "Well, it's my expression of freedom."
I like, "That's bullshit, that's not freedom.
"I know you think that."
And then suddenly she turns around and says,
"You know my best friend in prison,
"when they asked her what the last thing was that she wanted
"before being executed, she asked for a cigarette.
"Just a cigarette, and they denied it to her.
"So then we went to a corner and the last moment
"they would take her and pretend they would be smoking
"and it was our expression of freedom."
(water rushing)
On the other side of the world
I came to understand that, in fact,
it was never about my mom's silence, but mine.
It wasn't about her answers, but about me
phrasing my questions.
(water gushing)
When you got to prison, did you tell them
that you were pregnant?
And did they really kick you in the stomach?
Did you wonder if I may be dead?
Did you talk to me when I was in your belly?
Were you worried that they'd kill my dad?
Is it true that you had to give birth to me blindfolded?
And did you not see me then?
Did they torture you and was I present?
Why and when was I given out?
And how was that for you?
What happened when you were released?
Did I recognize you then?
If not, I'm really sorry.
Did you ever plan to talk to me about all this?
But the truth is, it's not even about all these questions.
But that I wanna tell you
I'm not afraid of ghosts anymore.
You only need a candle to light darkness.
And most importantly, I wanna tell you
I'm sorry for all you had to go through.
(water slapping)
(speaking in foreign language)
(match sparking)
(speaking in foreign language)
(plates clanging)
(speaking in foreign language)
(singing in foreign language)
(speaking in foreign language)
(laughing)
(speaking in foreign language)
(soft piano music)
* No one will answer your prayers *
* Until you take off that dress *
* No one will hear all your crying *
* Until you take your last breath *
* But you
* Will learn
* To mind me
* And you will learn
* To survive me
* Your father before you
* And your sister too
* Your husband and blah, blah, blah, blah *
* You
("Faith Hymn" by Beautiful Chorus)