The Seed of the Sacred Fig and Seven Days directly address the repression of a theocratic regime. Both films are showing at the Toronto International Film Festival,Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Even with her head scarf carefully in place, the popular Iranian actress Vishka Asayesh would be repeatedly recognized by fans on the streets of Tehran. Visiting the Toronto International Film Festival to launch the new feature Seven Days, she is bare-headed and anonymous, freed from both the hijab and the recognition. After the 2022 hijab protests, she no longer wished to appear veiled on camera and made the difficult decision to leave, joining her husband and son in France where she is trying to build a new career at age 51.
Her tough choice was minor compared to that of her character in Seven Days: Maryam is a feminist activist given a seven-day pass from a Tehran jail for medical treatment. Her brother arranges to smuggle her across the mountains to Turkey where she can reunite with her husband and growing children, now living in exile in Germany. Will she go to her family, or will she stay and fight the regime from a jail cell?
“I think a lot of women can relate to this character,” Asayesh said. “They don’t need to be in Iran to go through the same problem. Whoever is a fighter, an activist, being a mom, they have the same emotional dilemma.”
The Farsi-language film, directed by German-Iranian director Ali Samadi Ahadi, was not made in Iran. Produced in Germany, it was filmed in Georgia, where Tbilisi played Tehran and the mountainous region of Kazbegi stood in for the Iranian-Turkish border. Like The Seed of the Sacred Fig, an Iranian drama set during the hijab protests that is also showing at TIFF, Seven Days directly addresses the repression of a theocratic regime.
“Artists want to say what they have in their hearts. Either they do it and face the consequences. Or they just leave,” Asayesh said.
Vishka Asayesh attends the TIFF premiere of Seven Days on Sept. 7.Juanito Aguil/Getty Images
Seven Days is inspired by the life of the imprisoned human-rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Her teenage twins, living with their father in France, have not seen their mother in almost a decade. They were also separated from their father, activist Taghi Rahmani, for several years when he was jailed. He has said he feels guilty that his children have to suffer for their parents’ work: Seven Days directly dramatizes the decision to pursue activism at great personal cost.
In the film, Maryam is questioned by her husband as to why she would even consider returning to jail: She accuses him of sexism, saying men who make such sacrifices are considered heroes.
“That scene gives me goosebumps,” Asayesh said. “When I first read the script, I was like: ‘Come on, come on. What’s wrong with you?’ This is how we are brought up: You have been told you’re a mom, you have to stay with your kids. This is your duty. But if you were a man, nobody would have told you that.”
The Seed of the Sacred Fig looks at the other camp. Filmed in Iran, it revolves around the family of a devout judicial investigator forced to rubber-stamp severe sentences for protesters while his teen daughters follow what is going on in the streets. Director Mohammad Rasoulof, who is also the screenwriter on Seven Days, fled to Germany after he was sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison and whipping for making the film. Like Maryam in Seven Days, he ditched his phone and crossed the border on foot.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig was filmed in Iran.TIFF
These ferocious films are a marked departure from the subtle personal dramas so characteristic of Iranian cinema. From Taste of Cherry, Abbas Kiarostami’s 1997 film about a man seeking suicide to A Separation, Asghar Farhadi’s 2011 film about a couple seeking divorce, Iranian directors have often focused on narrow tragedies to quietly expose the injustice of their society.
“Iranians are very poetic, masters of the metaphor,” Asayesh said. “When we were at work, we knew we couldn’t say this sentence, so our director or the writer would sit down and come up with another sentence that had the same meaning. We played around and it made everyone more creative to find the way to say what they wanted to say.”
What changed this game, at least for Asayesh, were the women’s protests that erupted after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested for improper hair-covering.
“I could not have allowed myself to go back to work when they were killing girls or putting them in prison because they were going out in the streets without the hijab. What would I be saying? ‘Okay, I will put it on and go back to work and earn my money.’ I could not become complicit.” After she decried the violence on social media, the regime confiscated her passport and forced her to sign a letter agreeing she would not make further statements. When the passport was returned, she left, a decision partly motivated by the offer of a role in Seven Days.
Kiarostami, who chose to remain in Iran until his death in 2016, once told the Guardian newspaper that a transplanted tree will not bear fruit. Asayesh’s reply is simply: “Enough is enough.”