No One Knows About Persian Cats examines the oppression that faces Tehran’s underground music scene. The film’s stars, Iranian musicians Ashkan Koshanejad and Negar Shaghagi, have since relocated to London and continue to record and perform under the name Take It Easy Hospital.
“80% of the film is what happened to us,” says Ashkan Koshanejad, who, together with Negar Shaghagi, is the star of No One Knows About Persian Cats. “The whole film is based on truth but sometimes you can see some facts in the film that happened to other people which the director mixed with our story to make a whole story for the film. It ended up as a mixture of fiction and reality together.”
The duo’s move to London was, as Ash’s co-star and band member Negar explains, “Exactly as it happened in the film. When we decided to shoot this movie, we received an e-mail from a festival in Manchester and we only had seventeen days to go to the festival. So we told the director [Bahman Ghobadi, the Iranian director of Half Moon and Turtles Can’t Fly] and he decided to shoot a movie in that time. When the movie finished we left, so the whole story was true. Unfortunately the other two band members couldn’t come with us.”
This is an excerpt from an article that appears in the April issue of Clash Magazine. Pick it up in stores from March 4th. You can read the full issue online HERE and subscribe to Clash Magazine HERE.
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The film depicts a vibrant underground music scene that battles extreme governmental oppression. The rules governing music and art are regulated to the extent that any such creativity is effectively outlawed. Ash estimates that the huge number of obstacles depicted in the film constitute just a small percentage of the issues that Iran’s creative community is faced with. “You haven’t seen millions of other problems and difficulties for artists in this film,” he says solemnly. “Sometimes people lose their lives for making music or doing arts.”
“I would say the only reason behind the banning and the censorship is because they’re afraid. And the only reason for them being afraid is because they don’t know anything about it,” offers Negar in search of a reason behind the oppression. “The intention of the film is to show that music is not a political act. It’s only a positive and creative thing for young people and it can do a lot of good for the country. If someday they would just open their eyes and try to see things differently, they would find the truth is something totally different to what they think.”
Is there any hope of that happening?
“Yes, I think so. It’s not a matter of political change, it’s a change that happens in people,” she answers. “One of the intentions of the film, besides the fact that the government has restrictions on music, is that families and the generation that are older than us maybe sometimes think that music is not a safe place and they say it’s dangerous.”
“Whatever you see in the Western media about Iran, it’s absolutely wrong,” declares Ash as conversation spins around to the media created perception of the country. “It’s 100% different than what is really happening.” He singles out specific programming on Iranian culture broadcast by the BBC and Channel 4 for praise. But such media output seems to be in the minority when contrasted with the altogether more common stereotypes, with both Ash and Neger angered by a recent Jimmy Kimmel sketch.
“Somebody told me, ‘I really want to see Iran but I’m afraid I might get killed.’ It’s a very interesting country to go to, just get on a plane and go there. This is what the media has promoted,” argues Neger. “People in Iran are put under pressure by the media. You turn on the news and you’re being criticised, people want to attack you and you feel so much pressure and fear.”
“This country has five thousand years of history,” concludes Ash. “These people have talent and these people are artists. In general, the past thousand years of Iran has provided poetry, music, arts and architecture. People only see the nuclear power, the war, the oil and it’s absolutely wrong. We want to change this vision. We want to say that we are just like you. There’s no difference.”
Words and photo by Ben Hopkins
No One Knows About Persian Cats will be released on March 26th by Network Releasing. It will also be shown at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival held in London between March 18th – 27th.
Take It Easy Hospital will release their new album in the summer: www.myspace.com/takeiteasyhospital.
