Why are short films neglected in Iran and popular abroad?

Charso Press: The problems of the short film are not one or two. A director looks for a producer for three years for the release of his film, his film is banned and his actor is not given a statue, and the same film is sent to international festivals and is widely accepted by the judges. It has pushed back and hindered its progress. In the following, you will read the full text of the interview with Rahele Kerami, the young director of the short film.

You have made two short films so far, one of the problems in the short film cinema sector is the budget, did you also have this problem or not?

Definitely, like the children of the short film, I was faced with this concern from the first day, how can I work with this budget? Because not every film can be made with any budget, even now that it has become expensive and the equipment and other things have become more expensive, the budget is very important to me, as well as someone who will be with me in this way.

Currently, with the amount of 100 or 200 million Tomans, can you make a decent short film?

It depends on the script. Sometimes this amount affects the work, the workload of the script is high and we inevitably delete parts of the sequences and we don’t get a series of plans because of the budget, and the output of the work is not what we expect. But there have also been works whose production cost was 100 or 150 million.

We have directors in the world who make short films for a lifetime and are known and famous in this way. But this does not happen in Iranian cinema, and short films and documentary films are a springboard to feature films. Does this cause weakness in the field of short films? Do you agree that short films are weak in Iran?

its definitely true. But there is absolutely nothing that I can say that the production process is going in a good or bad direction, because one year works are produced that are great and have more noise, and another year it is not like that. But regarding the point you said, I must point out that there is a mafia in the Iranian short film and that makes me, who is not a member of the Iranian Short Film Youth Association, not be seen there. There is a mafia, even in the short film festival, the works of children like me or the children of the city are not seen.

For example, I took three years to find an investor for the film “Good Girl” that I just made. It was a long time for me that I didn’t have a party, and my script had a subject of consumer history and was very virgin and no one had approached it, but after three years, the process of dealing with it had become a normal thing.

Is the short film a springboard for making a feature film in Iranian cinema?

No, there is absolutely no such thing. It’s true that it can be a springboard, but it can’t be a launch pad either.

I don’t mean that anyone who makes a short film can also make a feature film, I mean that after that he reaches a certain capital and fame and stops making short films and starts making feature films.

It is a favorite series for short films. When you are involved in a feature film, there is a problem that you, like a tailor who always sews a piece of cloth and then is told to sew a shirt, the tailor does not return to sewing the piece of cloth. I don’t know if my example was the right example or not. If the concern is talking and conveying information, if you can convey the message in a longer time, then it is definitely better for you. Someone like Saeed Raushi started with short films, entered the field of feature films and never returned to the field of short films. Of course, maybe later they wanted to and returned.

“The Good Girl” won awards from three international festivals, the award for best director, best screenplay and best actor. There are a series of issues that are sometimes related to a country, but your subject in this film is a unique global issue, not that no one has not covered it, in fact, no one has covered it from your point of view. Talk a bit about the topic and its global dimension.

When I was busy writing the script for “Good Girl”, I came across advertisements on the wall that were for the sale of hair. Well, hair is very important for girls and they are sensitive about it, and when that hair is taken from them for a sum of money, it is fragile for them, and from there the story of “good girl” was key for me. I came to think that how does a person sell a part of himself? Of course, we had liver, kidney, cornea, we even had people who sell their blood because of their special blood group. This was the spark for my work and I started writing.

About “Good Girl”, you play a little girl, usually one of the main tasks of directors is to get a good performance, but how did you get this performance?

This is your opinion. In my previous film “Doll”, I was a screenwriter and producer myself, and my actor won an award. I think about acting, acting is not something that is taught and is more innate.

Innate actor or director?

Apart from the actor’s talent, it is inherent to the director.

Did you choose the actors through an audition or did they go through the process and you chose them?

In “Doll”, we found one actor among 80 or 90 girls aged 8 or 9. For this work, we made calls on Instagram and found actors.

The actress of “Good Girl”, Mobina Azadi, was not an actress or did she take a course?

They had completed an acting course, like Mr. Khalaj and Shagaig Farid Sheeran, but they had no acting experience.

Filming in crowded locations and controlling the actors and the crowd is difficult, apart from acting well, you also controlled these issues well, apart from the fact that it is your ability, what was the idea of ​​going to the crowded environment in your mind?

Basically, in the documentaries and screenplays that I write, because I myself am always among people, I like it to be in the external environment, I like the actor of my film to be between the crowd and the people, it was the same in “Doll”. It makes the story more vivid, that we arranged all this and the target is that person.

Have you thought about what to do next?

Yes, the next work is one of social problems and again the subject is children and teenagers. I have written the script of that work and it is being produced.

In the first film, no one supported me and I was the producer myself. After the production, I won a lot of awards in the domestic festival. After a while, there was a festival in the domestic festivals called Kar, where Mr. Ayari and Khosro Masouminia were also judges. One day They called me and said that this movie has been banned and don’t give the award to this movie, my actor won an award and finally after a year of running I was able to get the statue, the documents are available. I didn’t win this bag in the movie “Doll” and I didn’t get the pleasure of receiving the award from Mr. Ayari himself and hearing that they were happy that they judged this movie. We don’t have friends and party short film kids and we are struggling with problems that we have to try ourselves in a hopeful state. Regarding the cost, sometimes we can make movies with the same camera and phone in our hand.

In these two films that you made, you have a kind of social concern, the concern of children, especially girls. Do you think this feminist view has bothered you and why do you deal with these issues so much?

Maybe my first films were with girls, but I am also concerned with women. The platform of women is less, not only in Iranian societies, but everywhere in the world, and I think it is more prominent in some countries. We who entered the labor market can have this platform.

What is your plan for the future?

Shortly after this short film that I want to make, I will start making the feature film.