Divorce Iranian Style
Divorce Iranian Style is a documentary film directed by Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini. It is set in a small courtroom in central Tehran, and follows a number of women who come before a non-plussed judge and in turn use whatever they can - reason, argument, charm, outrage, pleas for sympathy, patience, and wit - to get what they each need. There are four main characters: Massy, who wants to divorce her inadequate husband; Ziba, an outspoken 16-year-old who proudly stands up to her 38-year-old husband and his family; Jamileh, who brings her husband to court to teach him a lesson; and Maryam, remarried and desperate to regain custody of her two daughters.
Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini on the making of Divorce Iranian Style
The idea of making a film about the working of Sharia law in a Tehran family court was born in early 1996 when a friend introduced me to Kim Longinotto, the documentary filmmaker. I had seen and liked Kim’s film, Hidden Faces(1991), on women in Egypt. Kim had for some time wanted to make a film in Iran: she was intrigued by the contrast between the images produced by current-affairs television documentaries and those in the work of Iranian fiction filmmakers. The former portrayed Iran as a country of fanatics, the latter conveyed a much gentler, more poetic sense of the culture and people. As she put it, ‘you wouldn’t think the documentaries and the fiction were about the same place.’ We discussed my 1980s research in Tehran family courts and I gave her a copy of my book, Marriage on trial.
The first step was to apply to British TV commissioning editors for funding and to Iranian officials for access and permission to film. Kim focused on the first and I on the second. As will become clear, I had to negotiate not only with the Iranian authorities for permission and access, but also with myself. As a novice in film making, I had to deal not only with theoretical and methodological questions of representation and the production of anthropological narratives, but also with personal ethical and professional dilemmas. The film’s subject-matter – the operation of Islamic family law in Iran today – inevitably entailed both exposing individuals private lives in a public domain, and tackling a major issue which divides Islamists and feminists: women’s position in Islamic law.
We wrote a proposal for a documentary film to be shot in a court in Tehran, and in March 1996 an application for a permit to film was submitted to the Iranian Embassy in London. We phrased the proposal carefully, knowing the sensitivity of the theme. We stated that our aim was to make a film that would reach a wide audience and challenge prevailing stereotypes about women and Islam. This we wanted to do by addressing a universal theme cutting across cultural and social barriers, which ordinary people could relate to emotionally as well as intellectually. Marriage, divorce and the fate of children, we argued, provide a perfect theme for such a film.
In October 1996, we learned that our application was rejected, no reasons given. But Kim and I were now committed to the project, so we continued to lobby the Iranian Embassy, attending its functions to meet visiting dignitaries and explain our project. In December, we heard that one of our proposals for funding had come through: Channel 4 TV was prepared to fund us to make a feature-length film for its prestigious True Stories documentary slot. We were enormously encouraged.
So in mid-January 1997, we decided to go Tehran to follow up our application – to argue our case in person with the Ministry of Islamic Guidance – and also to see whether we could work together. I wanted Kim to see Iran for her-self, to get a feel for the place and culture. We talked about our project to people ranging from independent filmmakers to officials in television, the Ministry of Guidance, women’s organisations, and so on. All of them wanted us to change our theme, to do a film on an issue which was ‘politically correct’ and that could give a ‘positive image of Iran’, such as marriage ceremonies, female members of parliament, or mothers of martyrs. Clearly, what Kim and I saw as enchanting, as positive, were often things that could not be filmed. In our discussions, we had to show how a film about marital disputes, shot in the family courts, could present a positive’ image. We had to distinguish what we (and we hoped our target audiences) saw as positive’, from what many people we talked to saw as ‘negative’, with the potential of turning into yet another sensationalised foreign film on Iran.
Images and words, we said, can evoke different feelings in different cultures. For instance, a mother talking of the loss of her children in war as martyrdom for Islam, is more likely in Western eyes to confirm stereotypes of religious zealotry and fanaticism, rather than evoke the Shia idea of sacrifice for justice and freedom. What they saw as positive could be seen as negative in Western eyes, and vice versa. One answer was to present viewers with complex social reality and allow them to make up their own minds.
Some might react favourably, and some might not, but in the end it could give a much more
‘positive’ image of Iran than the usual films, if we could show ordinary women, at home and in court, holding their own ground, maintaining the family from within. This would challenge some hostile Wester stereotypes.
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