Friday, March 21, 2025
Iranians filmmakers have won the country’s third Oscar award, this time for the best animated short film a 20- minute production produced on a shoestring budget that took six years to make because the shoestring was so short. The winners were Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi, who made their animated short, “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” at the Barfak Animation Studio in Tehran. They almost didn’t make it to Hollywood for what became the biggest day of their lives.
They only got their US visas the day before the Oscars were awarded March 2 and their plane only arrived in Los Angeles three hours before the Oscar show started. “Until yesterday we hadn’t even obtained our visa and we were totally disappointed and now we are standing here with this statuette in our hands,” said Molayemi from the Oscar awards stage.
They made a subtle political comment when they said they were dedicating the award “to our fellow Iranians who are still suffering.” Pleading poor English, they read their remarks in excellent English from their iPhone. They said, “Just the fact that we managed to make this film under the extraordinary circumstances of our country is a miracle. Yes, if we persevere and remain faithful, miracles do hap[1]pen.” Sohani appeared in slacks and with her hair uncovered and long, flowing over her shoulders. The 20-minute film is about a widowered sea captain with PTSD and his daughter. It drew on elements of problems both their fathers suffered, one from his experiences in the Iran-Iraq war.
Cypress’s win upends much of the conventional wisdom about how one wins an Academy Award. Typically, once an animated short is nominated, filmmakers turn into politicians and spend time campaigning in person to influence Academy voters.
The Iranian filmmakers didn’t do any of that, and not by choice but because the US State Department dawdled in issuing them visas. As a result, they missed the entire Oscar season. It was nothing short of a miracle that they were finally granted a visa at the very last moment.
Molayemi and Sohani arrived in Los Angeles after a 25- hour flight, and Sohani said in an Instagram story that they are probably the only nominees in Oscar history to “go directly from the airport to the Oscars without any stop or rest.” Iran had two nominees up for Oscars this year. The other was “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. It was nominated in the Best International Feature Film category. But it was not submitted by Iran. It was submitted by Ger[1]many, which could claim the film because it was produced by a German film company, although the film was written, directed and acted by Iranians and filmed in Iran.
The film faced an insurmountable hurdle, however. Of the five films nominated in this category, reserved for films that are not in English, two were also nominated for Best Film the first time that has happened thus rationally shutting out the other three foreign films nominated in that category. A International Feature Film award did go to one of those two double nominees Brazil’s “I’m Still Here,” a film about a family trying to survive the Brazilian military dictatorship of the late 20th century.
More details about both of the Iranian nominees appeared in the last issue of the.
The Oscar award did not get major coverage in the Iranian me[1]dia. It was not barred by censors, however; state broadcasting, for example, reported the news. But Hamshahri, the largest circulation daily in Iran, and Kayhan, the hardright daily, did not report the award at all, while other publications just reported it on an inside page. It was only the third Oscar awarded to an Iranian. The previous two Oscars both went to director Asghar Farhadi for “A Separation” in 2012 and “The Salesman” in 2016. “In the Shadow of the Cypress” was the second short animated film by Iranians to be nominated for that Oscar. Last year, “Our Uniform” by Yeganeh Moghaddam was among the five nominees but did not take the Oscar home.
Originally, the government was willing to support the pair in their quest to pursue the Oscar by covering their travel expenses to film festivals. But they said things changed after they discussed the challenges they had making the film in an interview with Euro News Persian. Sohani recalls that during the interview, “We didn’t say anything political, but we talked about the financial challenges we faced because of sanctions and the devaluation of the currency and about how the unreliable internet here complicated things and how many useful online platforms are blocked here in Iran.” While those remarks might be viewed as benign, the duo believes the government didn’t see it that way and ceased support.
