Video: From Farhadi to Namjoo, Golshifteh, Hichkas and Kalhor, Iranian Artists Protest Death of Destitute Rioters

Dec 19, 2019

Politics , Culture , Society , Entertainment , Videos , Kodoom Official Blog

Kodoom.com News Blog, Politics:
According to Deutsche Welle and Independent, Dozens of prominent Iranian filmmakers, actors, and musicians have published a statement in support of the rioters and protesters, mostly from the working class (news link), saying they will not forget the young faces of the dead, who were killed and then ignored by associating them with "foreigners." The statement condemned the violation of the people's "most basic human rights" and their "most apparent needs," and warned that people's voices "will remain in history." Prominent filmmakers including two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi and Berlinale-winner Jafar Panahi, as well as well-known musicians Hossein Alizadeh and Kayhan Kalhor, are among the signatories of the statement.

Speaking to Brut America, Golshifteh Farahani, an Iranian actor who has been living in exile in France for the past decade, explained that many protesters started demonstrating because of a hike in gas prices, but “never came back home”. In the emotional video, the renowned actress stated that the killed protesters were “son of some people”, “fathers of some people”, “daughters of some people”, and “they are dead now”.

Another prominent musician living in exile, Mohsen Namjoo, has also released a song titled “The Wind Blows” and dedicated it to “Pouya Bakhtiari and all innocent lost lives”. Pouya Bakhtiari was a 27-year-old engineer living in a city outside of Tehran, who was shot dead in the protests and became the face of the many youths who were brutally killed by security forces.

Separately, the godfather of Iranian rap music, Hichkas, has released a song about the recent protests and the inequality that plagues the Iranian society. In the song, titled “Clenched His Fists”, the exiled rapper states the various grievances that led to the demonstrations, and describes the brutality of the security forces. The song is in the spoken word format and includes audio snippets recorded by protesters on the street, where voices can be heard saying “they are shooting people”.

The song is very politically explicit and speaks of Iran as a cage where people are stripped naked, pointing to the economic suffocation that people feel, said Nahid Siamdoust, an anthropologist and cultural historian at Yale University.

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