Franco-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi and the Collectif 50/50 brought together in a clip 48 men and women around Barayethis song became the anthem of the uprising in Iran.
Make the voice of the Iranian people heard through those of French personalities and citizens. This is the idea behind the video clip directed by Franco-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi and broadcast on social networks this Wednesday, November 2.
Some melodious notes resound. ” To dance in the street. For the fear of a kiss. For my sister, yours, ours. On a black background, headphones over their ears, the actresses Chiara Mastroiani, Camille Cottin, the singer Yael Naim, or even the director Olivier Loustau lend their voices to interpret in turn, in Persian, the title “Barayé” (“For” ). “ There’s nothing more touching than when people try to speak in your own language “, underlines the author of the comic strip Persepolis, herself arrived in France in 1994. The musician Benjamin Biolay signs the musical arrangement of the title “Barayé”, which has become the hymn to the freedom of an entire people.
Since the start of the uprising in Iran on September 16, with the death of young Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police for wearing the veil deemed improper, this song has become the rallying cry of all Iranians who demonstrate. We have seen it, in videos, sung by high school girls in a sit-in in their establishment, taken up by bare-haired Iranian women, we have heard it resonate in the streets of the cities of Iran and of course punctuate all the gatherings of support for the Iranian people around the world.
“A message from the French people to the Iranian people”
” This is a message from the French people to the Iranian people “Summarizes Marjane Satrapi, while according to the latest reports from NGOs, the repression has already killed nearly 300 people and thousands of people have been arrested. The Franco-Iranian author and director refutes the motherhood of the project. Around her, the author and director Aïla Navidi and the Collective 50/50, who work for parity and diversity in cinema, have joined forces to echo the voice of Iranians beyond the borders and walls of the dictatorship. ” We were shocked by a movement, originally initiated by women, then rallied by men, and by the fact that the youth of an entire country, which had known only dictatorship, demonstrated for its freedom », explains Clémentine Charlemaine, co-president of the collective, who also recalls that many artists, such as filmmaker Jafar Panahiare imprisoned in Iran.
At the end of the clip, the faces and voices, on which images from the film are sometimes superimposed Persepolis, form an ever larger mosaic. ” We can always say: what is the point of this kind of action? Get ahead of the artist. But the Iranians with whom I am in contact tell me that when they receive signs of support from outside, they feel stronger, protected. They don’t want an intervention, military or otherwise. What they want is to feel that the world is listening to them, that they are heard, because that is also what gives them the courage, tomorrow, in a week, in two weeks, to go out in the streets at the risk of their lives to ask for a change. There is nothing worse than indifference in reality: so, whatever we do, whatever message we send, it is positive and it can provide support. »
Like this clip, “Barayé” is in a way a collective work: it is by aggregating the tweets summarizing the reasons for the Iranians’ anger under the hashtag #Mahsa_Amini that Shervin Hajipur wrote this song. Hours after it was posted on Instagram on September 27, the video had amassed 40 million views. Arrested and then released a few days later, the young man has since been silenced and the video has been deleted from his account.
” There’s everything in this song “, emphasizes Marjane Satrapi. “ The 43 years of humiliation, repression, poverty even… Until these allusions to the ban on having a dog or these local cheetahs endangered and whose defenders are nevertheless prosecuted. “ Nonsense for the western world “, she stings.