about an American basketball player in Iran’s professional league, was among 30 films to premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival June 22.
Till Schauder, a German-born US documentary filmmaker, spent a year filming 32-year-old American Kevin Sheppard as he played with A. S. Shiraz and went through a process of cultural education.
“I wanted to make a film that gives an audience an opportunity to understand the culture better and also the political issues, the religious issues, the social issues,” said Schauder. “Sports is a perfect medium to do that ‘cause you open people up.”
Sheppard, who had previously played basketball in Venezuela and Argentina, had a rocky start with the A.S. Shiraz. His team didn’t fare well initially, and a televised incident involving Sheppard kicking a trashcan landed him in some trouble. But after a talk with the coach and adjustments, his fortunes in Iran took off and Shiraz started a winning streak.
Along the way, Sheppard was befriended by three Iranian girls, who would visit him at his apartment. Here, Elaheh, Hilda and Laleh could openly talk about politics and air their frustrations with the country’s ills. Sheppard learned about Iran and the restrictions on Iranian women from these conversations.
“What’s going on in Iran is bad enough, but for women it’s even worse,” he told Reuters. “The lack of freedom they have, [they have to] keep wearing the scarf, being half of a woman in terms of voting.” (He was apparently referring to the fact that under Islamic jurisprudence a women’s testimony in court is worth but half of a man’s testimony.)
Sheppard, who is from St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, drew parallels between the struggles of the women and pro-democracy demonstrators in 2009 with those of African-Americans during their civil rights struggles.
“I realize that I’ve never been through what African-Americans went through with Dr. King, but I can only imagine it had to be something similar to this,” he said.
Schauder, who is married to the film’s Iranian-American co-producer, Sara Nodjoumi, and holds dual American and German citizenship, said he felt the diplomatic tensions between Iran and the United States on the streets of Iran in how some Iranians treated him and Sheppard during the making of the film.
But it was his treatment at the hands of the Iranian government that was most significant to his filmmaking project. On one of his trips to Iran, the regime detained him overnight upon arrival and deported him the following day, without explanation.
Working out of his home in New York, Shauder now hopes to release “The Iran Job” in American theaters later this year.
Sheppard has since retired from the game and has returned to the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.
