Iranian films have a charm all their own. But a horror movie coming out of Iran does pique interest. Specially when there’s a line like “restaurant serving human flesh” in the synopsis. And it’s supposed to be based on a true story!!
Fish And Cat has all the trappings of classic American horror — a nightmarish story of an isolated camp by a lake where a bunch of 21 college students arrive for a kite-flying festival, a restaurant nearby, a lone cabin where three cooks live… and the cooks are in search of meat, any kind of meat.
Fish and Cat ’s writer-director Shahram Mokri talks of how youngsters in Iran now are fascinated by horror films that come out of Hollywood. They get to watch them on DVD.
“The new generation in Iran likes such films. But mine is not a slasher film. I have tried to play with several genres. It is based on a piece of news that appeared in a yellow magazine in Iran 10 years ago, about a restaurant that served minced human meat. You can’t really find the thin line between true and false in a sensational yellow paper now…” he grins. The young Iranian filmmaker is in Bengaluru for the 7 Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFES). Mokri started making documentaries in 2000 and has won several international awards. This is his second feature film. He’s part of the jury that will watch Kannada films at BIFFES. Mokri has been to the Mumbai film festival before.
Fish And Cat, probably the first horror film to come out of Iran , has been in the limelight for having been shot in a single-take “bravura shot” tailing the characters over a period of two hours, while telling a non-linear story. “I like the paintings of Maurits Escher, where you can see a change in perspective in the same visual. In my film, I wanted to give a change in perspective of time in one single shot. So the idea for the film came from his paintings. The story moves back and forward, and in many circles and comes back to the beginning,” he explains. It’s been filmed by Iran’s master cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari, who’s credited with bringing to life the films of Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Majid Majidi. The actors rehearsed the film for almost two months in order to be able to shoot the film this way, Mokri mentions.
Speaking on the sidelines of the festival, Mokri made a distinction between Iran’s propaganda films — almost 100 are made every year — and the new wave cinema “post revolution” that has seen independent filmmakers who make films with the help of their friends and which mostly have a market in film festivals and DVD releases abroad.
Fish And Cat won the special Orrizonti Innovative Content award at the prestigious Venice Film Festival last year, and the Best Film award at the 13th Lisbon International Film Festival, and added a Special Jury award at the 10th Dubai International Film Festival too.
Fish And Cat screens on Dec 8 at BIFFES, with repeat shows later. Check >biffes.in for schedules.
