Mania Akbari (Persian: مانيا اکبری, born 1974) is an Iranian filmmaker, artist, writer, and curator whose works explore women's rights, marriage, sexual identity, disease and body image.[1] Her style, in contrast to the long tradition of melodrama in Iranian cinema, is rooted in the visual arts and autobiography. Because of the taboo themes frankly discussed in her films and her opposition to censorship, she is considered one of the most controversial filmmakers in Iran.[2]
From 2007 to 2010, Akbari worked on numerous photography-based works that were featured in various galleries around the world, while she kept making documentary and fiction films until 2011, when during production of her film, From Tehran to London, members of her crew were arrested by Iranian authorities for filming without official permission. Scared she too might be imprisoned, Akbari fled Tehran for London.[3]
Akbari's artistic activities, as a painter, started in 1991 when she took part in various exhibitions in Iran, as well as abroad.[10] She was later exposed to cinema, working as a cinematographer and assistant director on documentary films.[10]
Akbari's first work in the film industry was with documentarian Mahvash Sheikholeslami. In 2002, Akbari and her daughter, Amina Maher, and her sister, Roya Akbari, appeared in the docufictionTen. The film was released with Abbas Kiarostami as the credited director, but Akbari has since asserted that she shot the footage and Kiarostami only edited it.[11] The following year, Akbari directed her debut film, a short documentary called Crystal. In 2004, she wrote, acted in and directed her first feature-length film, 20 Fingers, which won best film in the Venice Film Festival's Digital Cinema section.[12]
Akbari's first feature-length film 20 Fingers (2004), a study of marriage and sexual identity, was screened in more than 40 film festivals around the world.[13][14]
Between 2004 and 2007, she made six video art pieces entitled Self, Repression, Sin, Escape, Fear, and Destruction, which were shown in numerous film festivals such as Locarno Film Festival and exhibited at museums such as the Tate Modern.[12]
In 2010, Akbari made a documentary about capital punishment and the execution of Behnoud Shojaee, titled 30 Minutes To 6. Although after the disputed 2009 election, the filmmaking conditions in Iran were becoming more closed and controlled, she decided to make One. Two. One, her third feature-length film, there. In the same year, she started working on her next film, originally to have been called "Women Do Not Have Breasts". During the making of this film, numerous filmmakers were arrested in Iran, and since she opposed the State-imposed limitations on expression, she left Iran for London and finished the film under the new title of From Tehran to London.[9]
In 2019, Akbari released a second epistolary essay film, A Moon for My Father, co-directed with the sculptor Douglas White, which one critic praised as "a form of digressive-poetic cinema, connecting images and ideas in a dream-associative logic".[20]
Akbari made the film How Dare You Have Such a Rubbish Wish, released in 2022, with clips of women in Iranian popular cinema from before the revolution.[22]
Akbari has also curated several film programs.[23][24]
Cinematic style
Akbari's filmmaking style consists of long takes, hand-held camera and almost painterly control of colour which is called "a cross between fiction and documentary."[1] In interview, Akbari pointed to "architecture and mise-en-scène within a space" as the most important elements in her filmmaking. "When I'm creating my frame, I really want it so that when each frame is seen the audience can imagine the space surrounding it themselves. The way that I'm creating the mise-en-scène within each frame, I'm trying to, every second, break the theatrical boundaries that people are seeing. In my view, I actually feel that it's more like performance art than a theatrical performance. It's as if I create a space for every single character and they come and perform within that space and share something with their audience, and then they leave."[25]
Reception
Akbari's work has been described as "remarkably fresh, audacious and relevant."[9]The Guardian has noted that her feature films are "rivetingly human: pitiless, potent studies of domestic strife, and of the fight for happiness – and domination – in sexual relationships."[1]
Favourite films
In 2022, Akbari participated in the Sight & Sound film polls of that year. It is held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, by asking contemporary directors to select ten films of their choice.[26]
