Salma Hayek says her new film, Septembers of Shiraz, should be a lesson to everyone about the need to treat migrants well.
Her message, and the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, is certainly timely, given the immigration stories dominating headlines of late – and the Mexican-born Hollywood actress specifically referred to the Syrian refugee crisis that has featured in most of them.
“Persecution can happen anywhere in the world at any time, and what is important to remember is that because a crisis is happening somewhere else [does not mean] it is not affecting us – I think what is underestimated is the ripple effect that can happen,” she says. “[Syria] is, since the Second World War, the biggest refugee crisis in the world and it’s important to take the lessons.”
Based on a memoir by Dalia Sofer, Septembers of Shiraz is about a secular Jewish family caught up in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Jeweller Isaac Amin (played by Oscar-winner Adrien Brody), is arrested and falsely accused of spying for Israel. His distraught wife, Farnez (Hayek), is left to try to find him, secure his release and get their family away from the turmoil.
Indigenous Australian Wayne Blair seems like an unlikely choice to helm such a film. His feature-film debut as a director was the 2012 musical comedy The Sapphires, about four Australian women who form a pop group in the 1960s. But in the aftermath of his of success with that film, he says he became interested in making a film set in a world and time he knew nothing about.
“I first read the script 16 to 18 months ago and fell in love with the characters,” he says. “For me it was a new world. It was a country at a crossroads, which caused the turmoil that led to a family being displaced.”
Hayek said that as soon as she landed the part, she began researching the role. “When you get this movie, you take your Rolodex and start looking for every Iranian friend you have had in your life and start calling them, even if it is after many years. Every Jewish, Iranian – very specific, they have to be old enough.
“I have a lot of friends, so I was able to talk to a lot of people, do some reading, and in the research what helped me a lot was looking at photographs. I feel that sometimes I can sense photographs and people, or the music that they used to listen to. I love the essence of the people, the world and the place.”
Brody, who like Hayek also has a producer credit spoke to many people who had suffered similar experiences to what his character goes through.
“There were many lives and many people’s journeys who were very similar, and several people shared their intimate and harrowing experiences with me and personally informed me of some truths that helped with my interpretation of the character,” Brody says.
“Unfortunately, in life we are seeing history repeat itself and are seeing many displaced and disenfranchised people in this world.”
There is a realism to this film that is absent from Argo, Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning 2012 drama set during the same time period. The picture painted of Iranian daily life in Septembers of Shiraz is more sophisticated, with an emphasis placed on the effect the new regime had on ordinary people.
“Many years ago, Iran was one of the places that were the most welcoming to diversity and where all religions coexisted in direct harmony and everyone had the same rights, and every one was so welcoming,” says Hayek.
The film starts by showing us daily life before the revolution – Isaac and Farnez are barely aware of the changes brewing, which are about to sweep their country.
When Farnez goes missing, their son, who has just gone off to university in the United States, is initially not told about the crisis the family is facing, while their housekeeper is sympathetic to the revolution, causing tension in the household once it erupts.
“The film is a representation of the book, but also many other people who faced this situation,” says Blair. “If we tried to encapsulate every story, it would be such a long film. What I have done is to dive in.
“There are so many stories that I can tell you – and [Iranian-born actress] Shohreh Aghdashloo [who plays the housekeeper] went through this at the same time [leaving Iran when the revolution started].”
artslife@thenational.ae
