New York film festival shows Iranian and Iraqi films tackling issues largely unknown in US

Human Rights Watch Film Festival features two movies offering scenes far from Western perceptions of angry fundamentalists.

NEW YORK // When Davoud Geramifard, an Iranian filmmaker who lives in Canada, first approached broadcasters about making a documentary on ordinary Iranians, he was told films about Iran do not sell. That was before anti-government protesters angered by questionable election results took to the streets of Tehran and gripped the world just over a year ago.

Geramifard, 32, went ahead anyway and travelled to his native country in 2008 to make Iran: Voices of the Unheard. It tells the story of three secular Iranians from very different backgrounds and portrays a country far from western clichés of angry fundamentalists. The film is being shown in New York as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which is also featuring The Unreturned, about Iraqi refugees displaced by war to Jordan and Syria, made by the filmmaker Nathan Fisher, 28.

Both Geramifard and Fisher were in New York to promote their films in the hope of reaching a wider US audience. Geramifard, who is from Shiraz, said: "I've been very encouraged by the response here so far and people say they have so many unanswered questions about what Iran is really like because the country has been blocked for so long. "We've been demonised for 30 years and generalised as fundamentalists who chant 'Death to America'. Many Iranians are secular and are not like that."

Fisher said he wanted to explore the issue of Iraqi refugees after getting fed up with the US media coverage, which concentrated on the Iraq war's effect on US domestic politics rather than its impact on people in the region. "There's been very little coverage of the mass exodus of Iraqis; it's an issue that's still going on and is still relevant," said Fisher, who is from Minneapolis. "Many Iraqis don't realise that their story is largely unknown in the US."

Both men made their films for a pittance in film-making terms, paying themselves virtually nothing, maxing out their credit cards and getting the help of largely volunteer teams. The Iran film cost about US$50,000 (Dh184,000) and the Iraq film about $20,000. When Geramifard started researching his film three years ago, his biggest challenge was finding Iranians willing to speak on film. He found a teacher who used to be a left-wing firebrand, a young intellectual and poet in Tehran, and a Ghashghai family who live a precarious life of sheep-herding. Iranian authorities have forced many members of the tribe away from their traditional nomadic life.

The film was made without any official permission, and he was not seeking mass distribution for it because he fears for the safety of those he interviewed. "I do want people to see the film but safety has to come first and my duty has to be to the people who helped me make it," said Geramifard, who did not expect to be able to return to Iran for some time. Fisher filmed in Jordan and Syria in 2008 and followed five Iraqis of different religions and backgrounds as they sought to make a new life in exile. He showed them running out of savings and their difficulties making a living as they tried to leave for the West. Jordan and Syria have become home to several million Iraqis, straining their already poor infrastructure and economies.

"Most of the characters have mostly gotten out to the West, giving some sense of closure for the audience, but the situation is still very difficult for many other Iraqis," Fisher said. [e-mail]