Freedom for Iranians after nearly five decades of dictatorship cannot be gained by a brutal war that is now moving into its third week, according to Sepideh Farsi, the award-winning French-Iranian filmmaker.
As concerns mount over the lasting impacts of the war in Iran, Ms Farsi has emerged as a voice in France highlighting the dangers posed by the joint US and Israeli military intervention for ordinary Iranians.
A fierce opponent of the Iranian regime, Ms Farsi was jailed for a year in Tehran as a teenager, before moving to France at 18. She has since built a body of work characterised by deep empathy for people trapped in situations of conflict and dictatorship.
In recent months – first during the brutal crackdown in Iran against protesters in which tens of thousands were probably killed, and more recently amid military escalation in the region – Ms Farsi has stood out as a feminist voice that has continued to advocate for human rights while calling for the end of the regime.
"I'm worried about my people," Ms Farsi told The National. "I'm saying: help Iranian people, but not with foreign, unilateral military intervention. Bombs won’t bring democracy."
Now, her worst fears – a war causing mass civilian casualties without toppling the Iranian regime – appear increasingly plausible.
US intelligence estimates leaked on Wednesday indicated that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon, despite the killing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, the first day of the US and Israeli strikes.
With political pressure building over soaring oil costs, US President Donald Trump has suggested he will end the largest US military operation since 2003 "soon".
But finding an acceptable end to the war could be difficult if Iran's hardline leaders remain firmly entrenched. "A strong and democratic future Iran is a far more viable and stable partner in the region and in the world, rather than a weakened but aggressive Islamic Republic or a puppet regime brought in with a foreign military intervention," Ms Farsi said.
"I deeply believe that the Iranian people are the real partners to bet on, for a sustainable and long-lasting move towards a democratic and free Iran."
Green Wave
In 2009, Ms Farsi stopped travelling to Iran, where her mother still lives, after she was interrogated by authorities ahead of the release of her documentary film Tehran Without Permission. Filmed on a mobile phone, it captured simmering anger against the regime just months before the Green Wave mass protests broke out following a rigged election.
"The Iranian people do not want armed conflicts," Ms Farsi said. "They have gone to the streets massively and confronted bullets, knowing they would be killed. The latest protests started over the economic crisis but quickly switched to demanding freedom from the dictatorship. It shows Iranians care about their freedom tremendously."
'Waking nightmare'
Ms Farsi's latest documentary, Put Your Hand on Your Soul and Walk, follows 25-year old Gazan photographer Fatima Hassouna before she was killed along with most of her family in an Israeli strike on their building in April 2025. It was selected last year for screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
Her previous movie, The Siren, which tells the story of a young man in the Iranian city of Abadan in 1980 at the start of the Iran-Iraq war, won Best Animated Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2023.
At a debate following a screening of Put Your Hand on Your Soul and Walk last week in a Paris cinema, a woman of Lebanese origin in the audience told Ms Farsi that she felt she was watching what might happen in Lebanon and in Iran.
"Sometimes I feel I'm living a waking nightmare," Ms Farsi responded. "I saw images of Tehran that looked like Gaza after four days of bombing, and it's not going to stop. They said they're going to intensify the attacks. In Gaza, [the conflict] is continuing; in the West Bank, it's continuing; in Lebanon, it's started up again."
From Paris, Ms Farsi views her role as a bridge-builder as she continues to try to amplify the voices of the unheard in Iran.
"There are other voices coming out of Iran. The problem is they don't reach here. They're Persian-speaking. They don't have access to foreign media," she said. "People like me in the diaspora have a connection to those from within the country, and we hear those opinions and discourses and analysis, which are very mature, in my opinion."
Lessons from history
In Iran, one of the most effective paths towards regime-change would be sustained international pressure on Tehran to release political prisoners, argues Ms Farsi.
She recalls how a similar move in November 1978 precipitated the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. "When political prisoners were set free in 1978 by the Shah, within two months, he was gone," Ms Farsi said. "If the dissidents are let out and have a possibility to formulate [their ideas], then we will have the emergence of figures."
Ms Farsi is wary of those within the Iranian diaspora calling for the return of the Shah's son, Prince Reza Pahlavi. She also remembers that in 1979 many Iranians believed they needed to rally behind Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, to topple the Shah and eventually transition towards democracy. That never happened.
"However good and reliable that figure is potentially, you cannot put everything, all the power, in the hands of one person," she said.
Iran's next leader should be a woman, Ms Farsi argued, echoing a rallying call of the Women, Life, Freedom movement that erupted in 2022. Iranian women can now largely choose to wear the veil or not in the street without facing harassment from local police. "You see how women keep resisting," Ms Farsi said.
Another example is Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, a human rights activist who is currently in detention. She has not seen her two children since her husband Taghi Rahmani, who spent 14 years in jail, moved with them to France for their safety in 2012.
"Being separated from her children and her husband, in order to hold her position and resist, she knew that was the price to pay," Ms Farsi said. "I think it's one of the strongest statements that one could make."
