A Separation can Bring Us Together

"We can never say or tell others how to look at Iranian people, or vice versa.  These movies are just positive tools that would simply help the understanding of one another, especially these days." 

- Peyman Moadi, lead actor

"It makes me so happy to have people see their real selves through such positive representations." 

- Asghar Farhadi, writer and director

A Separation (جدایی نادر از سیمسن), a film about a couple at a crossroads, has already won Golden and Silver Berlin Bear awards, a Critics Choice award, a Chicago Film Critics Association award, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and now makes history as the first foreign film to win the Los Angeles Film Critics award for Best Screenplay.  With so much hype, the film might even be an Academy Award nominee. Fingers crossed!

This all comes at a moment when tensions between Iran and the United States continue to escalate to a worrisome degree (especially in light of the tensions in the Straits of Hormuz, increasingly repressive sanctions, human rights concerns, and assassinations, both plotted and actuated).  However, Iranians export  good cinema.  Iranian films are nothing new to international film festivals, Jafar Panahi is a world-renowned director, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (the book and film) is a household title.  

But, the vast majority of Americans with whom I have interacted know very little about modern Iran (or Ancient Iran for that matter - no, 300 doesn't count) and its diverse peoples, cultures, and politics.  There is also a tendency in the United States to otherize minority groups and, relevant here, peoples from the Middle East in a way that distorts  the actual reality of these places and people (personal hero Edward Said can break it down for you, if you don't already know).  

Hopefully, the positive attention generated by Farhadi's A Separation will provide an opportunity for people around the world to see Iranians speaking by and for themselves through their own lenses and will create a much-needed opportunity to learn and understand one another as human beings.