Editor’s Note:
This filmmaker Q&A is published with permission using the filmmaker’s requested public identification, Nafir Rahsepar. The answers have been lightly edited for clarity, formatting, and readability while preserving the filmmaker’s meaning and perspective.
The Sigmund Freud Film Festival & Challenge has always been interested in films that explore memory, repression, identity, dreams, and the unconscious. In this filmmaker Q&A, Nafir Rahsepar discusses the motivation behind his film, the challenges of independent filmmaking in Iran, and the role artificial intelligence played in bringing his vision to life.
1. What was the reason and motivation for creating the film?
For years, the collective unconscious of ordinary people in this country has been under the immense pressure of a dominant ideology.
From childhood to adulthood, and at every stage of life, people have been subjected to this pressure. It may come through the destructive influence of family, indoctrination in schools, or the need for social status and financial survival.
Many people have succumbed to this ideology. Even those who may not truly believe in it have sometimes supported its world-building of hatred, either out of self-interest or because of childhood brainwashing. In the process, they have lost the courage for independent thought or dissent.
A vast majority of ordinary people now live under the agonizing weight of this ideological and subconscious pressure.
2. How was the audio obtained?
All of the audio in the film consists of real interviews and speeches found in various archives.
These recordings represent voices that have had a profound impact on the ordinary lives of the people, affecting both their financial stability and their daily existence.
3. How did you bring the project to life using AI?
Due to the many challenges of filming in a traditional way, including economic constraints and the impossibility of obtaining official permits, artificial intelligence became the most viable option.
Using AI allowed me to bypass censorship and logistical hurdles that would have otherwise made this story impossible to tell.
4. What first inspired you to become a filmmaker?
My journey into filmmaking began with writing.
Through an independent and experimental path, I learned how to express my rights, the rights of my people, and their struggles.
5. What motivated you to submit this film to the Sigmund Freud Film Festival & Challenge?
Studying Freud has always been close to my heart. I learned how to reflect human principles through Freud’s definitions in cinema.
Your festival, with its focus on Freudian psychological themes, is very prestigious and important. I have always felt a lack of Freudian psychoanalytic perspectives in Iranian cinema.
Because my film was about a mental and psychological challenge, I saw your festival as the right path for my film.
6. During our conversation, you mentioned that messages heard in public spaces often reflect only the government’s point of view. How did that experience influence your film?
My entire film revolves around this ideological issue: how the atmosphere of censorship and government control harms the subconscious of people and children.
Especially after the 12-day war, there were many unconscious psychological harms experienced by ordinary people and children.
7. What do you hope audiences understand or feel after watching your film?
I hope people around the world will have a different perspective on the courage and sacrifice of the great people of Iran.
8. You mentioned wanting your work to contribute to greater freedom of expression in Iran. What does freedom of expression mean to you as a filmmaker?
Freedom, for me, does not mean the ability to make anything.
Freedom means an equal condition within the framework of universal formal principles, where no story is removed because of its theme, and where original stories are allowed to be made while still respecting entertainment and art.
9. Are you currently able to travel outside Iran to attend film festivals?
I wish to travel outside the country, but because I have not completed my mandatory military service, I am banned from leaving Iran.
10. What challenges do independent filmmakers face in Iran?
The biggest problem is the power of uneducated individuals in decision-making positions.
This is why great artists like Master Bahram Beyzai, Nasser Taghvai, and Ahmad Mahmoud suffered for years, were banned, and were threatened, so that our generation could work properly.
Even now, after many years, the heavy shadow of censorship and the production of commissioned and dictated films grows daily, killing the spirit of art for ideologies.
11. What has helped you continue creating films despite those challenges?
I consider it my duty to show the path of independent art in this extraordinary country of Iran, to the best of my ability.
First, I receive strength from God. Second, I receive strength from friends who, like me, believe that art and form are more important than any politics or ideology.
12. What would you like filmmakers and audiences outside Iran to understand about Iranian artists?
I would like them to understand that despite all the difficulties, censorship, and sanctions, we continue striving toward our goal and our love for independent cinema, enduring thousands of financial and economic hardships.
13. Is there anything else you would like filmmakers and audiences to know about you, your film, or your creative goals?
This film was made entirely independently and without censorship, under intense social pressure and instability.
In recent months, repression has intensified, internet access has become heavily restricted, and many independent artists have been silenced, detained, or lost.
While connection remains possible, even briefly, I feel a responsibility to continue and to represent an independent voice.
This project was produced without institutional support, using artificial intelligence not as a shortcut, but as a survival tool to continue filmmaking under constant threat and limitation.
AI provided the freedom to visualize a reality that is often suppressed.
Movies that pick your brain.
The 8th Annual Sigmund Freud Film Festival & Challenge 