Head to Head

Bahar (Mehrnoosh Satari) is an acclaimed Iranian director, having made numerous films selected in international festivals. So when she casts actors and asks them to wear women’s outfits for her latest film, they agree in the hope of an international career — or even a visa to leave the country. But wearing skirts and headscarves under the heat is harder than they expected … as is the hit to their pride.

In this "film within a film" structure, Ghasideh Golmakani tackles not only the way women are portrayed by her fellow male directors but also their place in Iranian society. Using all the questions she had, Golmakani makes a brilliant use of humour to depict the relationships between men and women. “I’m not torturing you,” says Bahar to an uncooperative actor. “We’re recreating a perfectly normal situation with costumes used in our cinema.”

Then censorship intervenes, and the film crew steps outside its original setting to confront its own ambivalences with those of the outside world. The mockery rises to a whole new level, in which an old woman appears as the guardian of traditions, and thus an accomplice to the oppression experienced by women.

At a time when women filmmakers are fighting harder than ever to gain recognition in film industries where they remain a minority, Golmakani’s voice resonates as a cry from the heart, and Head to Head as a necessary and salutary act of rebellion.

CLAIRE DIAO