En Iran (Claire Childéric, 2001)

To go towards the movement of each voice, of each light, to go towards the unknown so that under the glance, the meeting takes shape. Iran has a very old and very rich musical and poetic culture. All environments, even the most modest, are impregnated with it. What remains today? In this film it is not up to me to explain or demonstrate. My need is to confront myself with the unknown of the trip, with a thread as a guide: ask random encounters and people of all conditions if they can tell me or sing me a poem they like. This trip to Iran, this impressionist walk, with a desire to go beyond received ideas about Islam, is a possibility of bringing together the matter of faces with that of voices, the movement of bodies with that of lights. . Cinema is my tool for seeking these encounters, through impulses that are both singular and ordinary. Because poetry, song are a breath drawn from the depths of ourselves, I want this film to sing. (Claire Childeric) “The people of Iran are the most poetic in the world, and the beggars of Tabriz know by the hundreds these verses of Hâfez or Nezami which speak of love, of mystical wine, of the May sun in the willows. Depending on the mood, they chanted them, howled them or hummed them: when the cold bit too hard, they whispered them. One reciter took over from the other; like this until dawn. The May sun was still far away and it was not a question of falling asleep. Nicolas Bouvier, The Use of the World (1954)