Interview with Mania Akbari, Director of 20 Fingers
Catherine MacLennan spoke with Mania Akbari, director, star, and screenwriter of 20 Fingers while she was in Vancouver for the Film Festival.
Catherine MacLennan: Congratulations on winning the Best Film Venezia Cinema Digitale prize at the Venice film festival.
Mania Akbari: Thank you.
CM: The way the scenes are tied together is with different modes of transportation - the moped, the car, the train - what made you think of that idea?
MA: I sort of experienced in my own life that if I sleep happy one night, or if I sleep crying one night - I want everything to stand still? I want the world to stand still? But then I realize in the morning the sun is going to come and then the moon is going to go so I realize that whatever happens to me that life is going to go on.
CM: I thought it was neat in the ski lift scene, how the dialogue fits exactly with the duration of the ski lift ride. Did that have to be timed? Was it difficult to make it fit with the period of the ski lift ride?
MA: Yes, I had tried different ways of going up the ski lift and different ski lifts. And, for example, one of the routes that I tried had been twenty minutes, and I thought, no, this isn't going to work out. And then I sort of thought that I need ten minutes and I found a duration of ten minutes for a ski lift so I made the dialogues to fit that ten minutes.
CM: At the Q&A session, someone asked if this film was shown in Iran, and the answer was that it hasn't been able to be shown in Iran. I was wondering if you will get in trouble for making this film?
MA: Unfortunately, recently in Iran, a lot of movies don't get permission to be shown. But there really is no law that will make us afraid so the problem isn't with us, it's with them.
CM: In the film the woman is modern and has her point of view and the man is resisting and wants control. As with the previous question, with the difficulty of even getting this film shown in Iran, I guess North American audiences might be wondering are there some men in Iran that accept the modern women? Some, any, or none at all?
MA: I think this group of men will always exist, that always want to control. This feeling that they have is not something they have chosen. It's something that they have acquired from childhood, from the culture and society they live in. If they see something other than this, then that's something they should be surprised about.
CM: You have acted as well as directed. Do you have a preference for one or the other? Which would you like to continue to do in the future?
MA: I prefer to make, to make things in general. Because with making something you can put a vision on your own dreams, and your own thoughts of reality. So you actually make your dreams, you don't become a tool for somebody else to make their dream.
CM: Do you have any upcoming projects that you're working on?
MA: I'm actually writing a new scenario right now. It's about seven women who live together in an apartment. I'm actually working on that right now.
The Lamp, October 2004