M.Dehnamaki: Everybody is Now a Hezbollahi, a Moralist and Practices Censorship

This is my second interview with Massoud Dehnamaki. During the first, he was one of the Hezbollahis. During the current interview, Dehnamaki is a filmmaker. His latest film is Ekhrajiha (the Ex-communicated, which is about a group of thugs who go to the Iran-Iraq war fronts and are killed). I interviewed him after his meeting with Hoze Honari Sazeman-e Honar va Tablighat Eslami (the arts department of the Islamic Arts and Propaganda Organization), where he clashed with the Hezbollahis.

Rooz Online (R ): In accepting the interview, you requested that it not be political. Why is it that while everyone knows you as a political person, you wish your interview not be in that context?

Massoud Dehnamaki (MD): I said this so we talk about my film, Ekhrajiha. This is because if we talk about other issues, nobody will talk about the film. Nobody will critic it. Everybody will want to critic Massoud Dehnamaki, whereas, one must look at the piece of art to be useful (not the artist). If we look at the source, then we are already biased.

R: There is something else that I must ask. When you were in Paris, and we spoke on the phone, you asked me why I had left the country while there was place for everyone in Iran. Is that true?

MD: Yes, there is place for everyone in our country.

R: Then why do so many people leave the country?

MD: They are making a mistake. The method of leaving the country and expect people to follow them from the outside has not worked. If it had worked, those [Iranians] living in Los Angeles would have by now achieved their goals. Whatever problems we have, they must be solved domestically. And if we say something, we must be ready for their consequences. ….This is what our regime and our revolution expects of us. This is the reason we launched the revolution. Our national interests are so wide that everybody, the left, the right, and all others must criticize management. After all we have different factions in the country. And everyone expresses their views. They have their publications. One day their publication is shut, the next another one is launched. I do not believe that leaving the country and following your goals from there is a good thing.

R: One must see how those who have publications are operating. And who are these people who own them. But must one belong to a government faction for this? Must everyone be a fighter? The struggle for basic human rights …

MD: What would have happened if you had stayed? You would have gone to court and then returned.

R: Like Zahra Kazemi [the Iranian –Canadian journalist who was killed in Evin prison]?

MD: Didn’t they kill an Iranian student in Canada?

R: MR Dehnamaki! The reason you believe there is greater acceptability of criticism in the country is simply because their ideological views are closer to your than to others’.

MD: My film was banned during president Khatami’s presidency. My publication during Mohajerani [both reformists].

R: I am not talking about Mr. Khatami. You claim criticism is now more acceptable, and I ask whether it has improved during the last 2 years.

MD: I am not presenting a factional defense. I say this country belongs to everyone. And we must work for a long time to improve its conditions. We must be tolerant of criticism, and invite others to criticize. And we must pay the cost of this. Show me a place in the world where criticism does not carry a price……My film is a protest, it is a critique. I have said the most serious things through satire. When I made Faghr va Fahsha (Poverty and Prostitution) during Khatami’s days, the president himself said the film was an honest presentation, even though there were people in his administration who opposed it. So I think if honesty is observed in criticism and it does not tainted by power, tolerance goes up as well. Unfortunately, the media in our society has been the leader in factional conflicts……. All I want to say is that our country has sufficient potential for all of us to deal with the hardships…..

R: The potentials in our country are even greater than what you say. The issue is that a country is not just its walls, land, streets, etc. You look only at the effects. You do the same in your films. In the film Faghr va Fahsha, (Poverty and Prostitution) and in Ekhrajiha (Outcast) … .

MD: Give me an example.

R: When you talk about prostitution, and picking up a women on the street … .

MD: In fact when I name the film Poverty and Prostitution I am really looking at the class differences. I am talking about development defined by consumerism. Which is its cause. When I say that when poverty comes, it sets faith aside it does not mean that prostitutes should be chased. What I am really saying is that you should try to fight injustice.

R: Do you think poverty and prostitution have been rising in our country?

MD: No. You want to make a conclusion on Ahmadinejad’s administration.

R: He is himself an effect (not the cause).

MD: To me, it is development that is important. In the film that I have made, I do not name Khatami, Hashemi (Rafsanjani), or anybody else. I am talking about consumerism and luxury in society. This is a society that in the beginning of the victory of the revolution (1979) invited people to be content, whereas today it advocates consumerism.

….

R: You too spoke differently in the past.

MD: Things have changed. One has to be with the times.

R: So?

MD: I now work with cinema as my media.

R: Why did you choose cinema?

MD: Because of certain principles. At a time we had to shed blood for these principles and ideals. And we did. At a time we believed that we should be publishing publications. And we did. Today because we think cinema is the right and effective media, we choose it. People have expressed their fondness for this film and the film has become the most sold out film in Iran’s cinema history.