The messiest Oscars category
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What is 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' about?
The Oscars are this Sunday, and of all the films nominated, only one of them was filmed in secret. It's called The Seed of the Sacred Fig. It's about an Iranian family at odds with each other over the country's repressive policies.
It was shot in Iran.
It's got Iranian actors. It's got an Iranian director. It's very much about Iran. But it's Germany's submission to the Oscars. The director of this movie, Mohammad Rasoulaf, is in exile, but we caught up with him in New York City to ask him what it's like to make a movie secretly and why Germany is repping this super Iranian movie. We're doing the Oscars. Today explains Stott.
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You are listening to Today Explained. I'm Mohamed Raslof. You can tell me Mohamed.
That's just about all the English we got out of the seat of the Sacred Figs director. The rest of our conversation was done through a translator who was with him in his New York City hotel. We started with the craziest thing about this movie, that it was shot in secret in Tehran.
Why was 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' filmed in secret?
Well, of course, the power structure in Iran, the Islamic Republic, is a despotic and repressive regime. And it has... implemented widespread censorship on all parts of the society. It does not allow any voices that are critical of it to be heard. Voices like myself who make critical movies. And so this is why the film had to be made in secret because we are trying to get our voices out and they're not allowing the voices to be heard.
When people in our audience hear that this movie was filmed in secret in Iran, they might imagine, oh, there were a lot of interior shots, you know, scenes set inside buildings, scenes set inside apartments, whatever it might be. That's how you film a movie secretly. But I was surprised when watching it that there are indeed shots of, you know, this family that the movie is about eating dinner together. Outside of a restaurant, you know, there's shots of people driving around Tehran. How do you do that secretly? Obviously, you have cameras when you're filming outside.
Yes, of course, at first we had limited equipment and we had to be inside and have interior shots. But gradually we learned how to be seen and how to have... the exterior shots. It's like wearing clothes. You try to protect yourself that way. The underground cinema in Iran tries not to be seen and tries to have films that are not impacted in their quality by the fact that they are underground.
This movie, The Seat of the Sacred Fig, it follows a family being torn apart. A father who's part of the sort of establishment in Tehran and his supportive wife. And then their two daughters who are unhappy with the system and eager to join young women protesting in the streets. And it's very much set during the Masa Amini protests from a few years ago. Why did you want to set a movie during those protests? And how did you come up with the idea for this family where all of the tensions we were seeing in the streets in Tehran were sort of manifested in this family unit?
As you said yourself, this is a story of a family who live together, whose members live together. but they think very differently from one another.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' about?
0:00–2:22
2
Why was 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' filmed in secret?
2:22–6:40
3
How was 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' directed remotely?
6:40–9:35
4
Why is Germany submitting an Iranian film for the Oscars?
9:35–13:25
5
What makes the Best International Film category controversial?
13:25–26:57