Night cap with Lower Heaven

An interview with Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi, director of Lower Heaven 

  How did you come up with the idea for Lower Heaven?
I was making another film when a photographer friend of mine showed me a photo of Mirollah (the brother who makes statuettes) and I wanted to meet him. A little later, I bumped into Zarif on the street and that was when I realized that I wanted to make a film about them. We talked a lot and they told me a bit about their story. I was struck by their charm: they had both been through a lot, but they had a childlike joy and a great deal of hope. So I decided to put the film I was shooting on hold and make a film with them.

 Did you conduct any research on undocumented immigrants in Iran?
No, I didn’t do any research. That’s not my type of approach: I work from my meetings with people, from my personal experiences and that of my actors. As I said, my desire to make this film came from meeting them.

 Why did your characters go to Iran? What is Iran’s political stance on this type of situation?
Just like young Afghan immigrants in France, my characters are fleeing a very precarious, unstable situation. They’re trying their best to earn a living and have a future. Many of them come to Iran because they’re from neighboring countries and they they speak Persian. Sometimes they’re on their way elsewhere. That might seem simpler for purposes of adapting and working, even though, as in most countries, it’s very complicated getting documents.

 What interested you in the sibling relation between your two characters? Did you envision them as part of a larger family or as their parents’ only children?
I’m acutely affected by brotherly relations. I like talking about the ambivalence of relations between brothers. That was actually the theme of my feature film.

 Have you discovered any advantages that the short film form provides?
I haven’t made a feature film yet, but I would hope to have the same freedom in both formats.

Lower Heaven is part of National Competition F6.