I was a judge this year at the Canadian Ethnic Media Association awards; among the winners was Aref Mohammadi.
Aref won for his documentary,
A Survivor From Magadan. It is about Ata Safavi, an Iranian who was imprisoned by the Soviets in 1947.
Safavi leaned left and the shah went after him, so he fled Iran for the Soviet Union; a good plan, except that the Soviets thought he was a spy and shipped him off to a Stalinist death camp.
Safavi survived where thousands did not, and he ended his days in Toronto. His story might not have been told but for Aref. The documentary is wide-ranging, formal, and above all it is about human dignity and endurance.
After the awards ceremony — documentary filmmaking being what it is these days — I asked Aref what he did for a living. He smiled — rueful or wry, I couldn’t tell — and said he reviewed Iranian film.
Hmm; it occurred to me that it would be good to sit with him and watch a movie.
Aref lives in the north end, in an apartment with a pleasing view of the city; green, at least to the eye, all the way to the lake.
He greeted me as if I were a jewel on the cushion of hospitality but, instead of popcorn he offered a tray of berries, melons, dates, biscuits and, because one of his best friends had just returned from Iran, a bowl of the best pistachios.
Aref said, “I am from Tehran. I studied Persian literature and after that, cinema. I made some short films there. I became an assistant director.
“I worked on two major movies. One was called The Restless Years. It is about people who import clothing from Dubai, in an illegal way, to sell in Iran on the black market.”
Sharp threads, a universal desire. Aref, who was wearing a summery madras shirt with jeans and sneakers, said he left Iran when he was still a young man. “I wanted to see the world. I wanted to examine my chances of a career in a better country.”
He went to Germany. “I started a local program on television in Berlin, a program about cinema, broadcast in Farsi. I started to review Iranian movies. It was very welcome — people didn’t have any connection to Iranian cinema, not like now; there was no digital.”
“Germany was not a place to grow as you wish; it’s very difficult to integrate.” So he came to Canada in 1999 and again he hosted a TV show, in Farsi, about film. “It was talking about and introducing independent cinema. I covered
TIFF, Hot Docs, the short film festival for 13 or 14 years.”
His habit was to link social issues with film — for example, he would set up a discussion about teens who run away, or divorce among Iranians, or drug use — and then show a film that touched on the theme.
Aref has also written a book, Iranian Cinema Today, containing some 50 interviews he did with actors, artists and cineastes. His Iranian publisher chose not to include interviews with certain artists who are in exile.
Elwy never had that problem.
The arts being what they are these days, Aref is obliged to find his own sponsors in the community for his TV work, and for his films. It is not always easy: “They have the talent for business, we have the talent for art . . . they need us; they cannot live without music and entertainment, and we cannot survive without their support.”
Two jobs, as always: making art, and raising money to make art. Aref’s new television season starts next month; it is available on satellite.
He had nothing new to review when I went to see him; instead, he screened one of the early films of Iran’s Oscar winner,
Asghar Farhadi.
Beautiful City is about a boy who turns 18 years old in prison. The birthday is grim, since it means he is now old enough to be executed for a murder he committed when he was 16.
Is the execution stayed? Does anyone find love? Is there happiness in the world? Can we ever forgive each other? Spoiler alert:
