TEHRAN – The shooting of “Laleh”, a controversial movie project about the first Iranian female race car driver, Laleh Seddiq who is known as “little Schumacher”, finally began on location in Tehran on Monday.
The film project, which is also being supported by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and the Iran Cinema Organization, provoked backbench opposition.
MPs said that the story the film has feministic tendencies and also gives a patriarchal image of Iranian society with ceaseless fighting between man and woman.
They had also criticized the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance’s decision to select U.S.-based Iranian filmmaker Esmaeil Niknejad to helm the project due to his background in providing services to some Hollywood productions.
Thus, the Majlis Cultural Committee had threatened to impeach the culture minister over the ministry’s plan for making the film.
Culture Minister Mohammad Hosseini and Iran Cinema Organization Javad Shamaqdari held talks with the Cultural Committee and convinced them the film would never undermine “the Iranian and Islamic values.”
“I do not really know where from and how the controversies were aroused and expanded,” Niknejad said during a ceremony that was held on the sidelines of the shooting of the film at the Mellat Cinema Complex.
“But, I say here that I thank all my opponents, because their arguments turned the film project, which was passing through the ordinary process, into a national project,” he added.
A non-actor named Sara Amir will play the role of Laleh Seddiq in the English-language film. Niki Karimi and Homayun Ershadi from Iran are main members of the cast, which is composed of over 70 actors.
Niknejad said that a group of foreign actors will join the project and shooting will completed in four months.
Iran’s Documentary and Experimental Film Center (DEFC) is the producer of the film
“The actors, who will be able to guarantee an international box office success for ‘Laleh’ and are similar to the characters of the screenplay of the film and morally have pure and humanistic professional backgrounds, are the most desired to be selected for the cast of the film,” DEFC Director Safi Aqamohammadian said previously in an interview.
The companies from U.S. and Canadian were to provide a large part of the budget for the production of the film due to their close relationships with Niknejad.
However, the DEFC announced last December that the companies withdrew from this project following the controversies over the film and the international sanctions against Iran.
Afterwards, the DEFC began seeking support from organizations in neighboring countries. However, no names were mentioned for the companies.
MMS/YAW
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