Interview
Shirzanan’a interview with Ayat Najafi and David Assman, the directors of Football Undercover (Football-e Sarbasteh)
We agreed not to release the film in Iran
Shirzanan: Solmaz Sharif/ translated by Roja Najafi: “Football-e Sar Basteh” was recently screened in Berlin and New York. This documentary film focuses on a football match between Iran women’s national football team and a football team from Berlin, which travelled to Iran for a match.
The film has attracted an audience mainly because of a general public curiosity about women’s sports and its closeted situation in Iran.
While watching the movie many questions arise. For example, why does the movie only focus on one match, when the men’s football team has 5 matches every week. The 80-minute documentary is full of side stories and misleading points that may push women’s sports away from the professional status that it wants to achieve. We put our questions in an interview with the two directors:
Can you introduce yourselves, please?
Ayat: I am Ayat Najafi, I live in Tehran and Berlin. I am working on collaborative projects with European filmmakers.
David: I am David Assman, I am a director and filmmaking student.
How come you got interested in women’s football?
Ayat: About five years ago I had a conversation with a foreign reporter about a female football player that he interviewed. It was very strange for me, I was an Iranian and I did not know that women played football in Iran. But a foreign reporter knew, and had an interview. This shows how closed and undercover the topic was. That gave me an idea for a movie.
Finally I found, one of the football players, Banafsheh Alavi. I made a movie and sent it to Berlin Film Festival for short films about football, in 2005. In the festival there were only two films about women’s football - the other one was Marlin’s film from Germant. Over the course of our friendly chats, Marlin realized that Iran women’s football team doesn’t play outside Iran, and this made us both interested in another movie.
David: Marlin is my sister. We always work together, with my other two sisters.
So it was not your first film about women’s sport?
Ayat: No, I had made this film, then I heard there is a football film festival in Berlin, so I sent it for them.
What about the permission to shoot in Iran? Weren’t you afraid you are not going to get permission?
Ayat: No, back then it was during Khatami’s time and we needed to have Iran Football federation permission, which was easy. Every thing was smooth except when we needed to get our visa’s to go to Berlin. The Iran’s Embassy in Berlin was not helpful and we had to promise that we are not going to show the film inside Iran.
How did you come up with the two main characters, Narmila and Niloufar?
Ayat: At the beginning we worked with many girls, both in Tehran and Berlin. But then one by one people were eliminated for different reasons. One of our main characters had a fight with the federation and quit football. Another girl in Berlin got pregnant and stopped acting for a year. Niloufar is a very brave and smart girl, she is a force of nature and does whatever she wants to. Very much typical of her generation. Narmila on the other hand is smart but conservative.
David: Narmila’s mother was the main reason behind her being a football player. She herself played football before the revolution, but after her marriage her husband did not allow her to continue and so she put all her effort in making her daughter, Narmila, in to a football player.
What about Sanna, the Berlin character?
Ayat: Sanna is very much like Niloufar - she is from a Turkish and Muslim family but yet there are many differences between the two. But they both dream big.
Niloufar does not were her scarf during the film and she talks freely, and although she plays very well she gets dropped from the team, why? Is it because of all the above?
Ayat: Yes, we think it is.
Did you ask her to take off her veil?
Ayat: Not at all, we even warned her about the problems she may face. She still has problems to join the national team. Even Narmila is forced to wear her veil by her mother.
Your film has a very nice sense of humor in it. Did you want to make a comedy?
David: No, while shooting the film wasn’t funny to us; every time something went wrong we thought our project was over - like the time the team kit was not ready in time - but people laugh and it is good.
David, what bothered the Berlin Team the most during the filming?
David: The presence of two security police. They were following us everywhere, we were not alone even for a minute. That was exhausting. They even did not let my sister and I get to one room to discuss our shooting plans.
Do you think with this experience you will go back to Iran again?
David: One hundred percent Yes, Iranian people are extraordinary.
Since you don’t have a permission to release the film in Iran, what is your plan?
Ayat: We welcome any invitation for independent film screening; if nothing comes up we know that the movie will hit the black market on CD and DVD. Although this is bad for business, but at least it makes the movie available for people to see what is going on undercover.
