Filmotor Nabs World Sales for Berlinale Title ‘Shahid’ Ahead of Visions du Réel Premiere (EXCLUSIVE)
14.04.2024 - 09:43
/ variety.com
Lise Pedersen Berlinale Forum entry “Shahid,” the debut feature of Iranian-German filmmaker Narges Kalhor, has been picked up by Prague-based doc specialist Filmotor ahead of its premiere at Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel, where it is competing in the more experimental Burning Lights section. Described by Kalhor as a collective work between herself and other artists, including a costume artist and a painter from Iran, a German music composer and a choreographer from Berlin, “Shahid” shifts playfully between genres, challenging conventional filmmaking rules.
Set in present-day Germany, where Kalhor emigrated as a political refugee in 2009, the film focuses on her desire to officially remove the first part of her surname, “Shahid,” which means “martyr” in Farsi and was inherited from her great-grandfather, in an act of feminist resistance to patriarchal structures. During this process, the actor who plays Kalhor travels back in time and meets her great-grandfather, but she also uncovers the true origins behind the name, which, it turns out, was chosen by her great-grandmother when her husband was killed.
As Kalhor realizes – on screen, during one of several scenes where she deliberately breaks down the third wall between filmmaker and viewer – that she is making the wrong film, she also comes to the conclusion that she knows nothing about this great-grandmother. “That’s the end of the dramaturgy,” Kalhor tells Variety.
“In this movie, we have no space for the great-grandmother – she tells me this through AI animation. She says: ‘All you talk about in this movie are the men and your great-grandfather, but let me just explain my story,’” says Kalhor, referring to a scene where the animated figure of her
.