With a big smile, Keshavarz told The Daily Telegraph of London, “Iran is a country that creates women who like to cause problems—to kick up the dirt a little. Maybe it’s the way we’re raised.”
But Keshavarz was raised—and born—in the United States. A 36-year-old Iranian-American who writes and directs her own films, Keshavarz has kicked up plenty of dirt with her debut feature, “Circumstance.”
The film is a rather sensuous glimpse of what Keshavarz says are rarely seen facets of Iranian life. The film highlights youth culture as experienced by two strong-minded teenage girls who rebel against their families, attend underground parties where drugs are routinely used, and embark on a secret affair together.
“Circumstance” was shot in Lebanon and has no license for distribution in Iran. “That would be impossible,” Keshavarz says, quickly pointing out that banned films are readily available in the Islamic Republic.
“It’s huge there!” she boasts. “It’s all over the black market. Piracy is big in Iran. It’s downloaded. It’s on DVD. Sometimes it gets renamed. So there are many ways people are able to hide it. I’ve had so many messages from Iran on Facebook, so I know it’s out there.”
It has been released in the United States, where it won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in January. But it’s received mixed reviews among Iranian expats.
“Fights have broken out at screenings in Los Angeles,” Keshavarz told the Telegraph, which observed that she was “looking delighted” as she said that. In Chicago, she said, people walked out at the first sex scene, shouting, “It’s disgusting.”
“I’m fascinated to go to screenings, answer questions from the audience and hear people’s reactions. There’ll be women there in hejab who I assume would hate the movie—and they’ve loved it. People who don’t like the film say I’m ruining their culture. It’s always Iranian men in their late fifties who tell me it’s not realistic.
“But the questions I get are fascinating: ‘Is it real? Is it true? Does she have the right to tell this story? She doesn’t live in Iran all the time’.”
Keshavarz was born in New York and has lived mostly in America, but visits Iran most summers. Her father was a doctor. She is the only girl of eight children.
“I grew up with two passports, and never had any issues going back and forth,” she recalls. “I’ve done it my whole life, even during the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. I had a deep connection, but also a sense of guilt—because I could leave [Tehran] before the end of the summer.”
Clearly, Keshavarz is liberal. “But my family is pretty divided. My parents are religious and pretty conservative, as are some of my brothers.” When she has visited Iran, female relatives have teased her. “They’ve told me I was embarrassing, like a villager, because of how much I covered myself up. But I just didn’t want to be pulled over [by the police].”
“A lot of women in Iran push the boundaries in terms of the way they dress,” she reflects. “It’s a political act, and it’s shocking to me how far some of them go. I’ve always been the opposite.”
Her reticent behavior in Iran marks a sharp contrast with that of Marjane Satrapi, author of the “Persepolis” graphic novels, and co-director of the film based on them. Satrapi was much more openly rebellious while growing up in Tehran. “She’s from a slightly older generation,” Keshavarz says. “I admire her, but our experiences are different. Still, Keshavarz and Satrapi share an insider-outsider view of Iranian life.
Born in New York, Kesh-avarz did her undergraduate studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and earned a degree in comparative literature and women’s studies in 1997. She spent a year in Iran, as a visiting student/scholar at Shiraz University.
Keshavarz then returned to the United States where she received her master’s in Near Eastern studies from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2000. She next went to New York University to work on a masters of fine arts in directing and screenwriting.
“Circumstance,” she says, is partly autobiographical and formed by her memories of her teenage years. There are elements of her own personality in both the two young lead characters, Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri), from a wealthy family like Kesh-avarz’s, and Shireen, (Sarah Kazemy) from a lower social class. In their different way, both are outsiders.
“They play out fantasies of glamour and escape,” Keshavarz says, “whether it’s daydreaming, talking of escaping to Dubai or exploring their sexuality. It’s only in these fantasy lives they can feel free.”
Keshavarz describes herself as bisexual, and not overtly political. Her film represents her general attitude to repression in Iranian society.
She is optimistic change will come. “I’ve met women in religious families, but they have their own ideas and fantasies. They can’t be controlled. Also, information isn’t limited, like when my parents left Iran. People can read books, download films, surf the Internet. They’re so savvy these days. And that’s hard for repressive regimes.”
