Exiled Iranian director screens clandestine prison drama in London
Iranian filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi is in London to screen Roya, a secretly shot drama about her torture in Evin prison, underscoring Europe's role as a fragile sanctuary for dissident artists.
Mahnaz Mohammadi is visiting London to screen two new films, chief among them Roya, a feature drawing directly on her imprisonment and torture in Iran. The 51-year-old director shot the exteriors in Iran without official permission and the prison scenes in Tbilisi, Georgia, defying a ban on her work imposed since her 2019 debut.
To protect Iranian actors from the regime, Mohammadi cast Melisa Sözen, a Turkish actress, in the lead role. The film details the solitary confinement of a university professor accused of inciting students to burn their headscarves, echoing Mohammadi’s own ordeal in the notorious Evin prison in 2011.
Roya is an experimental work, unfolding with the logic of a nightmare and shot extensively from the protagonist’s point of view. Mohammadi incorporated an autobiographical detail: tracing prison graffiti and leaving messages for the next inmate. “Mahnaz, you saved my life!” one subsequent prisoner later told her.
Her situation illustrates the complex reality for exiled public figures who use European soil to produce work that would be impossible at home. She left Iran specifically to finish Roya, but Europe offers only a fragile sanctuary. She recently had to move cities after a journalist disclosed her location.
“I’m not afraid of dying but I don’t feel safe,” she said. “It’s not a good feeling.” Her current presence on the continent also highlights the role of European media in amplifying dissenting voices. She is currently working on a documentary about women in Iran with the British broadcaster Channel 4.
Mohammadi is part of a wave of Iranian directors forced to operate from abroad. Earlier this month, Tehran’s revolutionary court upheld a one-year sentence for Oscar-nominee Jafar Panahi. Mohammad Rasoulof escaped to Germany this year after receiving an eight-year sentence and flogging for directing The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
Despite the risks, Mohammadi rejects the label of refugee and insists she will return. “I’m not just a film-maker,” she said. “For so many years, I have been fighting for women’s rights.” She framed her continued work in stark terms: “Mum, just imagine I’m a soldier, but I don’t have a gun; I have a pen and I have a camera.”
