Sreemoyee Singh sets out in search of the protagonists of Iranian cinema in her maiden documentary, And, Towards Happy Alleys, an endearing pronouncement of love for the medium. A conversation with the filmmaker.

By Aishwarya Bodke

An unhurried lyricism steers her words over a call from Kolkata on a hot October morning as Sreemoyee Singh speaks of her first encounter with Iranian cinema. “It was like falling in love,” she says. In its most charming parts, Singh’s debut documentary And, Towards Happy Alleys is a love letter to the cinema and poetry of Iran. In others, it is a thundering declaration of hope.

Works of new-wave Iranian filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Jafar Panahi gripped a 21-year-old Singh when she was pursuing a film course in 2012. Her simultaneous reading of the iconoclastic poet Forough Farrokhzad lent a sense of familiarity with a country she had never been to. One of the most influential— and controversial—literary figures of 20th-century Iran, Farrokhzad’s verses paint a sharp portrait of womanhood and female desire, something that informed the works of male filmmakers in post-revolution Iran. Farrokhzad’s presence throughout the film is undeniable. Her words inspired the title of the documentary and instilled in Singh the desire to learn Persian, taking her to Tehran.

The 75-minute runtime of the documentary encapsulates conversations and interviews Singh conducted over six years with filmmakers, most notably Panahi, and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh, among others. As the film begins, we see Panahi driving Singh around; a cheeky and meta nod to his 2015 film Taxi. He stops to talk to two women passing by, jokingly calling himself a taxi driver. He propels the narrative, merrily holding the camera and turning it on Singh. It is almost as if through these interactions, Panahi directs the films that he has not been allowed to make. Navigating house arrests and a 20-year ban on making films and leaving Iran, Panahi stayed back in the country he calls home while his cinema has smuggled its way out. When And, Towards Happy Alleys premiered at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, Panahi could not attend as he was in prison. The film presents him in a different light. This was the first time in two years that he agreed to be interviewed.

Singh is a one-woman team. While the people of Tehran were her backbone, assistance was scarce. Having a team would mean getting permits and inviting attention from the Islamic regime, a complete non-starter. It mirrors the cinema culture of the land. Every movie that gets made is a miracle.

Here, the filmmaker is also a part of the film. Singh consciously embraces the vérité style, adding a tonal comfort to subjects and revealing serendipitous moments and accidental censors. It was important, for at times, observation can be just surveillance.

It is Singh’s sensitive gaze and sincerity in learning the language that gave her this access to Iran, making the film a rare work of integrity. It is interwoven with her cadenced narration as she laughs and sings on camera, filling the void of the female voice. Women are not allowed to publicly sing in Iran since the revolution. Singh bursts into the popular Iranian song ‘Soltane Ghalbha’ several times, most remarkably in the final moments of the film. A room full of young schoolgirls join her, echoing liberation in a classroom.

After Berlinale, the documentary had a glorious run at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, Dharamshala International Film Festival and Kolkata International Film Festival in 2023, among many other international platforms. And, Towards Happy Alleys is making its way to the NCPA this month. ON Stage speaks to Singh ahead of the screening.

ON Stage: Please tell us about learning Persian in a short period and the access it granted with regard to filming.
Sreemoyee Singh: My initiation into Iran happened through its art. Poetry has influenced a lot of art forms there and has deeply impacted the new wave in Iranian cinema. Oftentimes, they are taught in conjunction. But so much is lost in translation. I felt the need to read those verses and watch those films the way they were intended to be read and watched. I was inspired to learn Persian before anything else. Language came first.

The Persian taught in India is essentially Farsi from the Mughal period, which is not how people speak in Iran. So, I decided to go there and learn it while pursuing a PhD exploring exiled filmmakers in post-revolution Iran.

The access that the language brought to me was incredible. We have so many films made about India by people coming here from the West. They are always in English. I did not want to go to a country that is not mine and expect people to speak in a language that is not theirs. Being an Indian in Iran helped too because we share a history of thousands of years. They love our cinema as we do theirs. They still watch films like Sholay and Sangam. So, being a filmmaker from India worked in my favour.

OS: Was it difficult to get filmmakers like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Shirvani to agree to be in the film?
SS: The fact that my film was grounded in academics, along with my willingness to learn Persian, made people trust me. But filmmakers around the world have tremendous support for their peers, especially the ones working independently. They were very approachable. If Kiarostami was alive, I am sure he would have met me too.

It did take me three months to get an interview with Panahi. I remember speaking to him and his family for an hour at his home before we made our way to his car, allowing me to capture a profound metaphor for his cinema. The filmmakers knew what I wanted. It was a two-way process and I was grateful.

OS: It was very interesting that you chose to follow the female protagonists of Panahi’s early films. Girls who are now women. How did you think of pursuing that angle?
SS: One of the ways in which new-wave Iranian cinema could work around impositions and modesty codes was to use children as mouthpieces to evade censorship. I was curious as to where these kids are today as adults. I happened to ask Panahi and he simply picked up his phone to call Aida Mohammadkhani, who played the little girl in his debut feature The White Balloon. She is studying to be a neurosurgeon. She loves India and was happy to meet me. The first time I met her is exactly how it is captured in the documentary, and it turned into a beautiful friendship.

OS: You have spoken about certain privileges you got as a foreigner. But when you spend so much time in a place, when does the line blur between you being an outsider and an insider?
SS: Learning Persian gradually and continually diminished this divide. That is just the kind of power language has. As I got fluent, people would not recognise me as Indian any more. The first few scenes of the film capture my initial experience. It was like déjà vu; I was in one of the many Iranian films I had watched. It was delirious until I was snapped out of it. I was on a bus and a woman’s eyes pierced through my camera as she asked if I was filming her. I was jolted out of the dream-like feeling. That was a crucial moment when I realised I was an outlander and that was not enough. I cannot just observe. The language of the film completely changed after that.

OS: The subjects of your film are people at the receiving end of the consequences of fighting back. How did you navigate the ethical compunctions during and after the making of the documentary?
SS: The reason it took me six years to complete the film is that I was waiting for people featured in it to reach a secure place in their lives. A lot of them wanted to make a move from Iran and I had to let that happen before having our first screening in Berlin. Most of the women you see in the film have moved out. Apart from that, it was easy to navigate such questions because they wanted me to film them. So, I gave it a lot of time and the film was born out of living in Iran and of lived experiences.

OS: How does one capture tenderness and hope when there seems to be little room for it?
SS: Just like all the post-revolution filmmakers did for decades. The precarious idea of Iran primarily emanates from the mainstream news reporting from the West—an Orwellian state of suffering and death. While I don’t want to completely deny it, I must emphasise that Iran is a land of impossible hope. I wanted to capture that. All of it was never not personal to me. India is not vastly different to me because our freedom is curbed in kindred ways. The paranoia is present, especially for women.

But to have been in a country where music is a privilege puts things in perspective. We have to hold on to the hope to still be able to sing our songs, tell our stories, make our films and fight the fight.

This article was originally published in the November 2024 issue of ON Stage.