By Crispian Balmer
VENICE, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Repression, conflict and political upheaval at home inspired Iranian drama “A Bit of Light”, its makers said at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, describing a society increasingly numbed by repeated tragedy.
The movie by director Ali Asgari follows a doctor who plans to end his life after being arrested and stripped of his medical practice, only to rediscover reasons to keep living during a final day spent visiting his family.
“The thing that weighs most heavily is the sense of helplessness, not being able to do anything, not being able to change anything,” lead actor Misagh Zareh told reporters, speaking through a translator.
“Even for a small Instagram post against the death penalty, the next day they summoned me to court.”
STILL FILMING IN IRAN
The director, whose previous films have screened at Venice, Cannes and Berlin, said the title reflected a belief that survival in contemporary Iran depends not on grand hopes, but on small acts of endurance that help people keep moving forward.
“We don’t have the strength to light our path with a very large light,” he said. “We need small things in our lives to keep going, and those small things are illuminated one by one.”
Asgari is based in Iran and continues to shoot movies there, although he was briefly banned from filmmaking after premiering “Terrestrial Verses” in Cannes in 2023. “A Bit of Light” was shot in Tehran and Turkey, with some of his cast based abroad.
Screenwriter Shadmehr Rastin said the events of the past year, including a bloody Iranian crackdown on protesters and two wars against Israeli and U.S. forces, had left many people emotionally exhausted.
“We are anaesthetised,” he said. “It’s as if we don’t feel anything any more. The pain is enormous, the despair too.”
‘EVERYTHING WE DO BECOMES POLITICAL’
Asgari said that in today’s Iran, everyday actions can quickly acquire political significance.
“In our country almost everything we do becomes political. Sometimes even having access to the internet becomes a political act,” he said. “Cinema is also a very powerful means of resistance, and a way of giving energy to audiences.”
The actor Zareh echoed the sentiment.
“For us, cinema is not just an art,” he said. “It is a weapon. We use cinema as a weapon of defence.”
Yet despite the bleakness that hangs over the film, Asgari said he wanted to capture the contradictions of life in modern Iran, where tragedy and normality exist side by side.
Walking through Tehran after recent upheavals and conflict, he said, he saw people shopping, children playing and daily life carrying on.
“Life and tragedy are happening at the same time,” he said. “These are things that normally stand in contrast to each other. Now they exist side by side.”
“A Bit of Light” is one of 21 films competing for Venice’s Golden Lion award, which will be presented on Saturday.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer;Editing by Alison Williams)
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