Tomorrow we are free

Director Hossein Pourseifi‘s feature-length debut, based on true events, is carried by the performance of its leading actresses and shows the process of how the mullahs came to power in 1979 after the Shah was deposed. The narrative perspective focuses on the female characters and their loss of freedom due to the “Islamic Revolution”. Coherently integrated archive material, TV clips and amateur footage from the time complement the scenes and create a quasi-documentary impression. The camera, which stays close to the characters, the setting, equipment and composition of the images create a very authentic atmosphere. The restrained visualisation enables the viewers to perceive the process of change and the dramatic impact on the public and private spheres, while avoiding clichés and exaggeration.

BASED ON TRUE EVENTS

»My husband loved Iranian music, which was very strange to me at first, with its very different intervals of tones and rhythms and singing technique. Our story ended tragically. The political conditions became unbearable and in 1982 I returned with the children to Berlin, where I had studied psychology after training as a librarian. My husband was arrested a few months later because of his political activities. My children and I kept in touch with him through very sparse censored little letters. In 1988 came the unofficial news of his execution. We never received any information from the Iranian authorities about his trial and sentence, about the date of his death and his grave. That was 20 years ago now. That’s why we are thinking of him right now, of his commitment to his country, of his suffering in Iranian prison and also of the wonderful love story that began in 1965 with the Leipzig Gewandhaus concert.«

THE EDUCATIONAL ADDED VALUE

40 years after the events surrounding the mullahs’ seizure of power, the film offers adolescents the opportunity to visualize the past, which still has a lasting impact on life in Iran and other radical Islamic countries today. Topics such as Sharia law, gender segregation, patriarchal power, discrimination against women and ideological-religious paternalism are probably not entirely unfamiliar to older pupils from current media and discussions. The cinematically successful interweaving of documentary and staged material opens up the narrative framework of how an increasingly totalitarian system penetrates the living environment and gradually destroys the future hopes of a multicultural family. The special family narrative, the stringent staging of a German-Iranian family alienated by socio-political conditions, the portrayal of the strong female roles and, last but not least, the depiction of the conflict over the upbringing of the child open up a variety of ways of approaching the subject.