24 Jul Veteran Filmmaker and 2025 Free Speech Award Judge Davoud Abdolmaleki Feels Film Has the Power to Help Us Examine Reality

Veteran filmmaker Davoud Abdolmaleki feels that the true power of film is in making us see the reality around us in a way we can’t ignore.

“I think that art should, perhaps first and foremost, clearly show us the situation we are in; show us our reality, the most real image of ourselves. Maybe this clear and honest image of ourselves will change us so that we can put an end to self-deception and illusions. In my documentary films, I have tried to make this happen,”  he said. “My presence at the Free Speech Film Festival and judging the Free Speech Award is also with the same intention: self-reflection and re-examination of our reality.”

For Davoud, the reality of his life, especially his childhood, was anything but idyllic. He was born in Iran shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and, soon after, witnessed Iran become embroiled in an eight-year war with Iraq. He said that, like all wars, this was a futile conflict to him and he’s still seeing the impact of it on his homeland today.

“Everywhere and everything was filled with slogans about freedom, justice, homeland, religion, and martyrdom, and so on. But I clearly remember that the reality of our lives was poverty, fear, and death. My entire childhood was spent in such conditions,” he said. “Now that I am 46 years old, I ask myself, ‘Why are all these things still here? Still baseless slogans, and still poverty, fear, and death in various and daily forms?’”

Davoud described himself as an isolated and curious child who had a deep and indescribable feeling of everything around him. When he discovered cinema, he instantly realized that these images were different from what he saw in the real world.

Living in a world governed by politics and religion rather than art, culture and science, Davoud said he saw that freedom had really become a tool for slavery and servitude. It caused him to question where the freedom was that aligns with life and human transcendence and why people weren’t using art and science to achieve creativity and expand inner freedom. He thinks filmmakers should be using their work to tell true stories and not to spread “sloganeering content.”

“An artist should not be a fortune teller, politician, legislator, motivational speaker, or religious person who intends to guide others. Rather, their source of inspiration should be themselves. I cannot make a film about something that I have not deeply experienced, because it is unlikely to be honest and constructive,” he said. “We need to support the independent filmmakers who have not been contaminated by money, politics, and partisan and religious ideologies and preserve artistic values in cinema.”

As for empowering the younger generation to learn about values like free speech and human rights, Davoud said educational textbooks and lessons should reflect on human rights, human values, freedom, thinking, and life.

“Students should be given enough knowledge about their identity, their individual and social roles, life values, coexistence with others, and respect for nature. We should remind them to be themselves, to be creative rather than imitative; to value freedom, understanding that growth and development require freedom,” he said.

His views on education further connect him to American INSIGHT’s mission to promote these values of free speech, human rights and the rule of law.

“Dialogue and the expression of our personal viewpoints on this matter, along with seeking assistance from art and film as a universal and shared medium across different countries with varying histories and cultures, is a way to achieve individual and social awareness of these fundamental and foundational principles.”

Davoud said that growing up during the time of the revolution and being exposed to the realities of death, war and martyrdom at an early age gave him a profound sense of the value of freedom of speech.

“We had limits for everything we did that were imposed either by parents, people, or laws. Those restrictions, under the guise of values and principles, penetrated the minds and thoughts of the people. They called it freedom, but what it meant to us was that we had to lie to everyone, even to ourselves, day and night, so that we could live. So that we wouldn’t get hurt. So that no one would kill us. It’s still the same,” he said. “I know very well what freedom of speech is, I know its importance. I know that without it, many of us only carry a shell and a body of a human being with us, while there is no humanity inside that shell. For many, that body has been emptied of humanity.”

Despite enduring a harrowing childhood, Davoud has gone on to have a successful career in film making. A graduate of the University of Tehran with a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies and Directing, he’s held roles as a film instructor, cinematographer, editor, producer, and director of independent documentary cinema in Iran. He’s a member of the Iranian Young Cinema Society and the Documentary Filmmakers Association of Iran. He received a 2024 Free Speech Film Festival Official Selection for his film From the Cradle to the Grave, which documented 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?”

Free Speech Film Festival Award

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