In Depth: "Seven Winters in Tehran" by Steffi Niederzoll

On Monday, Goethe Institute in Cairo continued their program Mondays in Missaha (Montags in Missaha) with "Seven Winters in Tehran" by Steffi Niederzoll.

The film is an impressive documentary about a case that shocked the world: Reyhaneh Jabbari's case. Jabbari was condemned for killing a man who attempted to rape and sexually abuse her.

Jabbari was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Sarbandi, who was linked with Iran's intelligence and revolutionary guards. After 7 years of trial and investigations, Jabbari was executed by hanging in 2014.

During the film, Niederzoll made the best usage of the secretly recorded footage of Jabbari during her time in prison, and her secret calls with her family. 

She beautifully mixed the statements of Jabbari's family, including her mother Shole Pakravan who is, of course, one of the heroes of the story. 

Moreover, the filmmaker introduced to the audience a real-like maquette for the prisons where Jabbari spent her final years. 

During the talk with Niederzoll, the director revealed a lot of stories about the film. She said that she was motivated by love to direct such a movie before being fully engaged in the story of Reyhaneh as a woman whose suffering and story could symbolize the oppression against women in several societies and communities. 

Therefore, she bridged the universality of the story for women, and the specific nature of the Iranian women. 

Niederzoll also opened the horizons of her film to give the audience an eye bird's view of the suffering of the Iranian women in prisons, and how are many of them just victims for their communities. That's why the director supported her perspective with various scenes for women who were cellmates with Jabbari, in addition to her calls and quotations for her 1000-page diaries. 

Niederzoll highlighted that working on such a film was challenging as she needed to make sure to have all this material, footage, and records to Germany to work on them, adding that the identity of many people who helped her in making this film was kept secret for safety and security reasons. 

She also wanted to make this film accessible to all audiences.

The German director also asserted that she made the film based on real phone calls by Reyhaneh recorded by her mother and voiceover by famous Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi who narrated descriptions from Reyhaneh's diaries. 

One of the impressive features of the film is the strength and dignity of Reyhaneh's mother who fought hard for her daughter which reflects the natural and genuine bond between the mother and her daughter. She supported her daughter by all means with her talks, speeches, social media posts, and campaigns to call for her daughter's justice. 

The usage of the sad lullaby by the end of the movie which is a song from the mother to her daughter was the best conclusion for the film. It added a deeper and more emotional dimension to the film.

She also was the main force for keeping the story of her daughter alive. She told Niederzoll that after the film screening, she slept without sleeping pills, and she understood her daughter's words for giving her wings. The first wing of Reyhaneh is the film, and the other is the book about Rehaneh's diaries entitled: "How One Becomes a Butterfly: The Short, Brave Life of My Daughter Reyhaneh Jabbari."