City's art beats for Iranian film-maker threatened with execution

mumbai: city film circles are horrified at the news that iranian film-maker tahmineh milani may face execution if convicted for her latest movie, the hidden half. milani is already renowned for her earlier films, two women and the legend of a sigh. the hidden half concerns a woman married to a judge, who recalls her youthful affair with a married intellectual in the turmoil of the early '80s.iran's revolutionary council, headed by supreme leader ayatollah khameini, has charged milani with ``supporting factions waging war against god'' and ``misusing the arts in support of counter-revolutionary groups''. a number of iranian film-makers whose movies have dealt with iran's revolution and the status of its women, have had their works censored or banned. however, milani was actually arrested in august and later released on bail. iranian president mohammad khatami personally defended the film-maker. the revolutionary council's move is surprising since the film had been cleared by the censors and the ministry of culture and was running in iranian theatres for a month when milani was arrested. meanwhile, the charges have not been dropped, and milani is awaiting trial. ``i was accused of doing things against national security and collaborating with anti-revolutionary groups outside iran. it is one of the highest accusations they can make, and the sentence is the death penalty,'' milani has told the press. she said she has become a pawn in the ongoing struggle between the liberalising policies of president khatami and powerful fundamentalist forces. meanwhile, there is a worldwide campaign to support milani by a chicago-based film company called facets multimedia, and fipresci, the international film critics' federation. milani has the support of iranian film-makers such as abbas kiarostami and mohsen makhmalbaf, as well as others, including francis ford coppola, martin scorsese, oliver stone, steven soderbergh, ang lee, sean penn and mike leigh. while the works of a number of film-makers worldwide have been threatened with censorship or bans, including martin scorsese's the last temptation of christ, jean-luc godard's je vous salue marie (hail mary), most of turkish film-maker yilmaz guney's work and closer home, shekhar kapur's bandit queen and deepa mehta's fire, the possibility of state execution makes milani's film something of an unfortunate cause celebre. vijay tendulkar, whose plays sakharam binder, ghashiram kotwal and gidhade have all faced censorship or bans, says, ``it is an outrage that an artiste should be threatened with execution. the death penalty is nothing but collective murder. our government will debate on how to deal with criminals such as dawood ibrahim, but you do not hear of such debates in the case of film-makers.'' says writer and critic shanta gokhale, ``it was during the emergency that we had a comprehensive ban, but in recent years, we have never come close to executing people, so we are relatively better off. the judiciary has always been a strong support for the arts, and it is not controlled by religious interests.'' likewise, shyam benegal has faith in this country's judiciary. ``here at least the film-maker's life is not at risk. my nishant was temporarily banned during the emergency as ``seditious'' and the films of k.a. abbas and anand patwardhan have been banned. but we have recourse to the judiciary, which always takes a constitutional view, even if governments do not. even in the case of deepa mehta's water, she had a choice of shooting her film elsewhere, but she chose not to.'' examining the larger context, film-maker madhusree dutta says, ``it is awful that milani should be threatened with execution. but iranian film-maker jafar panahi was recently handcuffed and humiliated in the u.s. for not having a valid passport, so there are other forms of censorship in so-called progressive nations too. we are better positioned in that our films are attacked, not the film-makers themselves, unless it's goons having the tacit support of the government.'' asked if, when state repression in iran, china and latin america has produced films that made their point through poetic allegory or magic realism, whether democracies blunt the edge of artistic rigour and provocation, dutta sys, ``actually, we're latkaoing (dangling) in between. we are neither enjoying our freedom of expression nor is there much good work born of political pressure. in fact, the market is a major censor. in market-driven cinema, we don't have political cinema at all. it was a tragedy that i had to support deepa mehta's fire __ the shiv sena robbed me of my democratic right to say it was a bad film. we don't make films that are worth banning.'' the slow poison of self-censorship has seeped into our veins. says gokhale, ``artists belong to the middle class, they are comfortable being status quoist, despite all the injustices around us. even in marxist totalitarian societies, the basic needs of the people were taken care of, but in our democracy, we are free to be poor. our sensitivities have been blunted, and when people protest against films like asoka, they are really protecting their right to be feudal.'' adds sai paranjpye, ``it is shocking how religion can be used against artists. even those who do so in india show how there is nothing more exciting in their drab lives, so they demand random cuts of censored films.'' tendulkar concurs, ``the arrival of independence in indian and south africa, at least, has blunted the subversive elements in our theatre and cinema. but the marketplace brings its own pressures. when doordarshan refused to show the episode of the priya tendulkar show on the ramesh kini case, we went to star tv, but their own pressures are no less. ``they have refused to show two episodes we have on the police role during the riots and police encounters.'' so, is there a very thin line between truth and bigotry? tendulkar sums up, ``sometimes there is no space between them at all.''