JEDDAH: The only Iranian feature film screened at the Red Sea International Film Festival here, A Childless Village, turned out to be one of the most impactful movies at the event, grabbing the best screenwriter award for Reza Jamali, who was also the film’s director.

A Childless Village is an extension of a documentary that Jamali produced 10 years ago, and is set in a real village faced with the issue of infertility. In a documentary style, the movie shows how the women and men of a small scenic village in Iran deal with the problem. Earlier, the women of the area were accused of being infertile, resulting in failed marriages.

Kazem, a filmmaker played by Behrouz Allahverdizadeh, is producing a documentary on the issue, offending the women of the village who burn all his recordings. After a midwife appears to deal with the issue scientifically through lab tests, Kazem decides to record another documentary that may wash his earlier ‘sin’. The midwife leads the men to go through tests, revealing that it was them who were infertile, and not the women. This turns the table for the couples.

Kazem uses common village men for recording his documentary, which also often creates many funny situations. There were certain instances that evoked loud laughter from the audience during the screening of the film at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. It was the ‘film-within-a-film’ format that made the production more interesting to watch.

A Childless Village also fetches Reza Jamali best screenwriter award

In a session with the audience, Jamali revealed more details about his film. When asked about the theme of his production, he replied: “I got the idea 10 years ago. I had made a short film, but it had limited reach and I wanted to reach out to a larger audience to make an impact. That’s why I made a feature film.”

To a question about the marvelous cinematography and stunning images, he said: “I actually started my career as a photographer and wanted the movie to be as close to real life as possible. Since the subject matter is a sad and a bitter aspect of society, I wanted to use fewer words to create that effect. I used to be a cinematographer too and I know a small mistake in filming can have a big impact on screen.”

Jamali revealed that when he made his short film 10 years ago, it was created only through his imagination, but many people who saw it told him there was a real village dealing with the same issue. He visited the place and was amazed to see that something that was only in his imagination, actually existed. However, he did not name the village in the movie, explaining he didn’t want the audience to relate it to the real village to maintain the aspect of fiction.

There were strong elements of a documentary in Jamali’s film, which he said was deliberate. To a question about it, he said: “The thoughts in my mind basically led to reality, and I wanted to make it look like a documentary. Even the cinematographer of the film used to work on documentaries. I tried my best not to make it look artificial or lose it somewhere between a documentary and fiction.”

The actors featured in A Childless Village were all amateurs or so-called ‘non-actors’, many of whom were introduced to the art of movies by Jamali himself. The filmmaker has amazingly extracted the best out of them.

“I have been working with these non-actors for a number of years and I know their weaknesses and strengths. I realised while filming that old men get tired easily, and I tried to create a friendly atmosphere for them and make them love cinema, telling them that it’s a means of reaching out to the whole world.”

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2022