30 Oct Davoud Abdolmaleki, 2024 Official Selection Director, Seeks to Bring Women Out of the Darkness

Darkness and light. Right and wrong. These basic elements that exist in stark contrast to one another have had a profound impact on the life of Davoud Abdolmaleki.

Growing up in an oppressive culture in Iran, Davoud saw firsthand the lowly status that was imposed on women compared to men and the lack of freedom of expression that they were given. It’s what drove him to give women a voice through his documentary film making.

This led Davoud to direct From the Cradle to the Grave, a 2024 Free Speech Film Festival Official Selection. In the film, he documents interviews with students at a girls’ high school who have lived the answers to two important questions: “Are we responsible for our destiny?” and “Do we have the ability to change the circumstances of our lives?”

Davoud was drawn to create the film because of his love for his grandmother, mother and two sisters. He wanted a way to voice his reaction to the way that women were placed under what he referred to as “the command and prohibition of the men of the family.” He said that the social and political changes that happened in Iran created difficult conditions for women and shaped his desire to tell women’s stories in his films.

“Women were always under the supervision of men and the rules of family and society. Their mistakes were bigger than men’s mistakes and their role in the family was always considered less than that of men. I did not like this look on women,” he said. “The condition of women in a society shows well the human rights situation of the people of a country. Women in Iran, as I saw them, were always bad. Everything that was imposed on them under the name of education and upbringing in the family, in schools, in the society and by laws, alienated women from their nature. I always criticized the wrong way of teaching in schools. Educational programs tried to make students a fake human being who follow patterns and conventions and are obedient. These educational programs were not compatible with nature and human nature and did not help to improve the condition of women.”

As a child growing up during a time of war, when the electricity in his home was constantly being cut off, Davoud developed a fascination for the contrasts of darkness and light and how it changed ones perceptions of the people around them.

“I was excited by the darkness of the environment and the light of the candles that cast the shadows of people and objects on the wall. I looked at the faces of family members in the dark. Their faces were visible for a short moment by the candlelight, and then the darkness hid their faces” he said.

Being so aware of this difference between darkness and light in people drove Davoud to be a big fan of film and cinema. As a boy, he would wait in long lines to purchase tickets to the cinema. Since his parents wouldn’t give him money to buy a ticket, he started his own little side hustle where people pay him to stand in the long lines and purchase tickets for them and he would use that money to buy his own ticket. The demand at the cinema was so great that no one could watch the same movie twice in one day. But Davoud would hide under the seats in the theater in between screenings to get the chance to watch a film a second time.

To Davoud, the cinema is where he came alive.

“When we were first taken to a mosque to watch a film, I was amazed at what I saw. I was fascinated by the images. It was just what a dreamer needed. In that darkness, I sometimes looked at the moving pictures and imagined myself in the place of the movie characters,” he said. “From then on, cinema became everything for me. A refuge for my loneliness, a place to stimulate my imagination and a place to experience all kinds of emotions on the faces of the audience as they stared at the big screen.”

As Davoud grew up, his idyllic life at the cinema was replaced with a sensitivity to the negative social issues he saw all around him: war, bad economic situations, unwanted political and social changes, poverty and suffering. This led him to realize that there was a stark difference between fiction and reality and he wanted to be a realist.

“Cinema became the border between reality and dream for me, where I could think about the concept of reality and fantasy. In general, the artist should be the most realistic realist and be someone who shows films exactly as they observe it and not in a way that others want them to.” he said.

By the time he entered the University of Tehran Faculty of Performing Arts and Music, Davoud knew documentary films were his calling.

“I was critical of false and deceptive fictional films. They had no function other than vulgar entertainment, making people’s lives look good, lies and propaganda, and this is still the case in Iranian cinema,” he said. “So, among the large number of fake fictional films, I preferred documentaries that depicted the real lives of people. I went this way. After writing many scripts and editing and shooting many films for others, when I felt that my films might mean something to others, I decided to focus on my own ideas. The first important idea that was in my mind for several years was to make a film criticizing the education system and depicting things that are not seen in girls’ schools.”

This is how From the Cradle to the Grave began. Davoud said he drew on his past experiences and observations and the emotional pull he felt watching women suffer to create this documentary focused on school, ideological training and identity.

“We started filming with the question that the teacher asks the students while teaching: ‘Are we responsible for our destiny?’ ‘Do we have the ability to change our life circumstances?’ The students of a girls’ high school told us the answers to these questions not based on the lessons of the teachers or what is written in the textbooks, but based on their life experiences in the real world,” he said. “We gave the students a lot of opportunity in front of the camera to reach the moment that revealed their truest reality. When the camera would turn on, we’d remain patient and wait to record the moments when all their fears would go away and they would be their true selves as much as possible.”

When reflecting on the power of freedom of speech, Davoud said he thinks of both individual freedom and social freedom.

“The power of free speech is a sign that tells us individual freedom has emerged. A society with such people is a developed society. In that case, poverty, the heavy shadow of politics, religious ideological beliefs and other things that are in conflict with the individual freedom of the people, will not have much effect,” he said. “Social freedom is a little different. People with free individuality can realize the concept of social freedom in relation to others. They understand and accept their differences and similarities with others. It is not easy to express who I am without worrying about the consequences. Until individual freedom and social freedom are not institutionalized in a society, the expression of what I am really does not happen.”

Davoud feels that while those in power in oppressive countries like Iran seek to “control and silence any dissenting voice,” films have a way to reach the masses and give people a voice they otherwise wouldn’t have.

“A film can influence the individual view of people many times more than thousands of speeches. With the naked representation of reality in front of people’s eyes, denial becomes impossible. When there is a desire to go beyond the status quo and change the governing rules, transformation is formed. To make fundamental changes and improve the condition of human societies and achieve human rights, art alone is not everything, but it can have a deep impact on the individuality of people,” he said.

Davoud, who received a Master of Cinema degree from Tehran University, is a member of the Iranian Youth Cinema Association and the Iranian Cinema Documentary Association. He is a cinema teacher, screenwriter, producer and director of independent and documentary films. His films have been featured in several national and international film festivals, including the Tehran Short Film Festival and the Coliseum International Film Festival in Rome, Italy. His 2023 film, The Passion of Mahmoud, was shortlisted for the 13th China Documentary Academy Awards and nominated for the Best Documentary Award at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival.

He said he was drawn to submit his film to the Free Speech Film Festival because it seeks to bring awareness to the cause of individual freedom.

“The Free Speech Film Festival seeks to reflect the ideas, views and voices that are vital to the future of freedom of expression, human rights and the rule of law. This goal motivates filmmakers to share their films that reflect the state of these values in their communities. Every filmmaker is looking for a way to share what their film is trying to convey and create a discourse between common people and influential people from different societies and cultures. This festival provides filmmakers with an informative and constructive way to do that,” he said.

Ultimately, Davoud said he’s proud to be a filmmaker because it’s allowed him to bring to light the plight of people who otherwise might not have a voice.

“I make documentary films to present an image that shows the living conditions of a human being in a corner of this world. I am a curious observer who creates an image of what I see for others to see and maybe those images will be a stimulus for thinking and a little personal change.”