Surprises of “Soran” / My condition for directing was not to be a face actor – Mehr News Agency | Iran and world’s news

Mehr News Agency – Art Group – Atieh Moezen: So far, 6 episodes of the “Soran” series have been broadcast as the newest television work in the field of contemporary history, which deals with the inflammatory events in Kurdistan from before the revolution to the beginning of the war. “Soran” was directed by Soroush Mohammadzadeh and produced by Mojtaba Farvardeh.

This series is a product of the center of the Surah series, which has adapted the book “Esrahi Chriskan” with an adaptation point of view. A book in which the narrator has expressed memories full of ups and downs, and here a section of these difficult and inflamed memories is discussed.

We had a conversation with Soroush Mohammadzadeh, the director of the series, on the pretext of airing the first episodes of “Soran” to ask about his challenges and difficulties in his latest experience. A director who for the first time went to a series in the mood of contemporary history.

* You have worked mostly in the field of melodrama, and this was the first time in your career that you are going to a series in the field of contemporary history. Tell us about the experience of “Soran” and what part of this series was attractive to you?

“Soran” was a serious and new challenge for me and I wanted to create something that I have not done before. Consequently, when such an offer was presented to me, I welcomed a new challenge. In my field of work, spatial design has always been the most attractive part of this job for me, which includes all geographical spaces, clothes and make-up. Especially the selection of new actors or lesser-seen faces is another part of this space creation, which is one of the attractive challenges for me.

* What did you consider so that the result of your work is not similar to other films and series that have been made in this space?

I looked at the works that were made in this field, especially the contemporary history and geography of Kurdistan, and I wanted to come up with a model for the story that, firstly, is not indebted to other works in this field and is my own work, and secondly, the audience of television is considered in it. I want to know that I am doing this for the TV audience, not the cinema. It should be a story that the TV audience can relate to.

* I think that at this historical moment, we have never seen Kurdistan itself in such a bold way in TV series. What was important to you in order to represent this image?

The most important part was the believable representation of geography and people. If we want to talk about two important elements in this section, they are geography and people. We refer to forty-odd years ago, where there is no trace of that geography, nor the people who lived in that geography. To believe this image, you must refer to the photos and images. Of course, it was important for me to inject traces of drama and melodrama to bring the general audience along, and I didn’t want my work to be just a documentary. We have examples in the cinema of this documentary atmosphere.

* Like some film documentaries of Mohammad Hossein Mahdovian.

Yes, we had such works that work in the cinema, but it may not work in all dramas or for the TV audience. My taste is to see the cinema as a cinema and this look is more attractive to me. Emphasis on drama and melodrama, cinematic mise-en-scenes and camera movements attract my attention more.

What was offered to you first was the book or the complete script?

When I was offered the job, a story was adapted from the book in the form of a synapse. There was no script and the story was in such a way that it had little cinematic aspects and was much more than 13 episodes. The book starts from the period before the revolution, and the author’s memories continue until the mid-70s. As a result, we decided to choose a period that can be recounted, is limited, and the conditions for its production are ready.

* What period does your story take now?

We considered from Khordad 57 to Shahrivar 59 and the beginning of the war is the end of our series.

The amount of hardships that happened to this character may sometimes be beyond the capacity of the audience to say how much hardship the character has suffered. * Tell us about the surprises of the series, which can be a difficult or challenging sequence.

Soran’s life path, which is the life story of martyr Amir Saeedzadeh, nicknamed Saeed Sardashti, is a very ups and downs life, especially at this point that we have chosen. The amount of difficulties that happened to this character may sometimes be beyond the capacity of the audience to tell how much the character has suffered.

The fact is that the show is attractive. Maybe that surprise is in some scenes that have been less seen in the television production space in recent years. In terms of production and the volume of armed conflicts that have happened and even the locations and spaces that have been seen and the special effects section, all of them can be considered as the characteristics of the work in terms of visual diversity and structure. I can tell the audience who has seen these few episodes that the series gets more interesting as it goes on.

* The actors of the series are mostly unknown, how much did you look for the faces? If you hear “no”, you can also mention this.

By the way, one of my initial conditions for directing this series was that there should be no famous actors in the series. Thank God, the producer agreed from the beginning. We were able to get the consent of the customer. My reason was to depict the believability that I said at the beginning.

The more unfamiliar faces we go to, the higher the level of believability. We agreed on this issue from the beginning and we did not go to a face to hear “no” at all. In our choices, we made sure that the faces and characters are close to the characters we want in terms of drama and real faces that were in history.

Except for Soran, many of the characters are a product of imagination or a combination of several characters that are mentioned in the book “Kriskan Eras”. Believability was the reason why we went to people who had either excelled in acting in the theater, or had gone in front of the camera for the first time, or their previous experiences had not yet been seen.

It might have been more difficult during filming, and even in pre-production we had a lot of practice, especially for accents, which increased the difficulty of the work, but we were faced with a bag of motivation that was there for all the actors until the end of the work, which helped the quality as well. upgrade

* Apart from the points you mentioned, what was the most challenging part of making this series for you?

The first and most important challenge was to choose the right geography in which we can recreate the geography of 40 years ago.

* Apparently you didn’t go to Kurdistan?

Yes, because it is not possible to produce such work with this production in Kurdistan. That geography has completely changed and even if the conditions were ready, the location was not the same as it was 40 years ago. With the management done by Dr. Mohammadreza Shojaei, the artistic director, we were able to find pristine and real locations around Tehran; Among other things, we were able to reconstruct the entire locations in the villages on the eastern side of Khavarshahr, the cinema town of Defence Magdas and Ghazali, etc. We also filmed a section in Yasouj to show the vast geography of Kurdistan and Zagros. We were supposed to have another part with such an atmosphere, but we could not return to Yasouj.

After this, the accent was perhaps my most important challenge, and I was concerned that all the actors should have a uniform and uniform accent that would not be imitated or artificial, and not that everyone should speak the same. Most of the actors in this series were non-Kurdish and we had 2 months of intensive training for the non-Kurdish actors. Some of them, like Aso Pashapour, have a Kurdish origin, but they did not live there, and maybe that’s why the sounds were more familiar to him. I think this intensive course that the accent consultant gave to the actors helped them a lot.

For the rest of the actors and minor actors, we tried to find those who preferably had Kurdish origins or even lived in Kurdistan. Actors like Mustafa Kulivandi, Ahmed Jafari, Ahmed Sadfi, etc., who were Kurdish themselves. The combination of these made the work have a quality of 80 or 90 percent.

* Especially since different ethnic groups have high precision and sensitivity in their representation in movies and series.

That’s why we were so obsessed with this issue. Even many stage agents were Kurdish, for example, our set and costume designer or some assistants were also Kurdish, and if a word or sound sounded wrong to them, they would say it right there.