City of Revolutions An unrealized project by Stefanos Tsivopoulos
"Whoever could be in charge of the public sphere of Tehran was in charge of the country. The contest over, and the domination of, the public spaces of the city was the embodiment of the revolution: in a short sense, this was the revolution" - Ali Madanipour, Tehran The Making of a Metropolis
Tehran. A city of strangers. A fragmented social world with a very weak public sphere. The Islamic revolution was one of the rare moments in recent history that brought these strangers together and forged a collective, but temporary, identity. It was, however, an identity based on negation. The story of Tehran is also a case study in the tensions of modernity. While a revolution (Pahlavi Rein) at the beginning of the twentieth century strongly promoted modernity, the second revolution (Islamic) towards the end of the century cast serious doubts on many aspects of modernization. Here [in Tehran] I have had to work as a construction worker. (...) Sometimes when I go to the street corner, where we are picked up by the clients, we get jeered by the Iranian workers who were more expensive and could not find a job. (...) There are so many people from everywhere that nobody bothers us about our documents. I don't wear my traditional costumes so that I don't stand out in the street. If I don't get a job for a day, I just wander around in the city centre, looking at thousands of passers-by and at the street vendors, shops, and places. I can get some rest in a mosque or go to one of the many cinemas near by. (...) Despite all this, for me Tehran is an alien place. (...) I know some friends who work in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where many new buildings are being built. They live on the site and if I am desperate I can go and stay with them. (...) I wish to get married and start a family, but there are no prospects. Most Afghanis who have come to Iran are men and I don't know any local people. Unlike any other city in the world one's position in this city is more crucial than ever. Whether standing in the inside or the outside, in private or in public can be as essential as freedom and captivity, as crucial as life and death. The violation of this city's rules is enough to stir a revolution at any moment.
The project City of Revolutions, was conceived three years ago as a film about the city of Tehran. It would combine archival images and found footage together with my filmed material from of the daily life, the social fabric, the architecture and the urban landscape of Tehran. The archival material is reflecting the Constitutional Revolution of 1911, the protests and demonstrations prior to the 1953 coup d’etat, the White Revolution of 1963, and finally the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A narrative script with a voice over would blend together the personal story of an Iranian leftist fugitive named Mashallah Vargha with the history of the city. Vargha was director of the homeland security of Iran during the years after the coup d’etat, but had to run away because at the same time he was an undercover agent of the communist party of Iran. Varga was lucky to be informed on time and escaped execution. With the help of the communist party he kept hiding in Tehran for almost 6 months before he fled to Europe. In his memoirs Shadows of Fear and Hope recounts the period of hiding in Tehran and among other things he describes the buildings, the neighborhoods, the life and the architecture of the city, with the eyes of someone who is hiding. Passages from his book are used in my film. "Underground rooms, rooftops, deserted houses and the vast urban landscape of Tehran was my shelter [...] Most of the times I was able to see only bits of what was happening outside. Through windows, half opened doors and holes through walls I was trying to keep an account of reality [...] Trying to make a story out of fragmented views and distorted sounds". On January 2010 I met Mashallah Vargha in his home in Prague. I interviewed him and he showed me his personal photographic archive. In most of the images he stands next to or behind the Shah of Iran. This personal archive would have been part of the film too. The memoirs of Mashallah Vargha Shadows of Fear and Hope originally written in Farsi have been translated into English especially for the script of the City of Revolutions.
The research for this work took several years, a trip to Tehran and a trip to Prague. During my trip to Tehran in December of 2009 my goal was to organize a small production team that would take over the pre production and production of the film. During this period of 25 days my phone was taped in, I was followed and my Iranian friends and associates have been under surveillance.
Three days before my departure, during a location scouting down town in Tehran, a group a Basij (Guards of the Revolution) stopped our taxi and took my two associates for interrogation to an unknown location with the excuse of a photo shoot of governmental buildings. They were held and interrogated for approximately two hours.
I have left Tehran with the fear that my film would harm the people that wanted to work for it. For them it may have been an act of resistance and freedom against a suppressive regime but for me it was an issue of responsibility and appreciation.
Tehran remains, at large the same after all these years, with the old buildings standing as monuments of a turbulent past reminding us of a turbulent present. The current situation in this country has been the main obstacle to go back and complete the project. Last but not least my interest to Iran and particularly to Tehran’s story springs from the fact that my mother is Iranian and that Mashallah Vargha is actually her uncle and part of my family. After I saw his personal photo archive I found history is not a distant document anymore. It became part of my family's photo album. Several documents, images, texts, and audiovisual material has been collected during this research that it would be able to reflect the different phases of this journey.
Stefanos Tsivopoulos
City of Revolutions An unrealized project by Stefanos Tsivopoulos
"Whoever could be in charge of the public sphere of Tehran was in charge of the country. The contest over, and the domination of, the public spaces of the city was the embodiment of the revolution: in a short sense, this was the revolution" - Ali Madanipour, Tehran The Making of a Metropolis
Tehran. A city of strangers. A fragmented social world with a very weak public sphere. The Islamic revolution was one of the rare moments in recent history that brought these strangers together and forged a collective, but temporary, identity. It was, however, an identity based on negation. The story of Tehran is also a case study in the tensions of modernity. While a revolution (Pahlavi Rein) at the beginning of the twentieth century strongly promoted modernity, the second revolution (Islamic) towards the end of the century cast serious doubts on many aspects of modernization. Here [in Tehran] I have had to work as a construction worker. (...) Sometimes when I go to the street corner, where we are picked up by the clients, we get jeered by the Iranian workers who were more expensive and could not find a job. (...) There are so many people from everywhere that nobody bothers us about our documents. I don't wear my traditional costumes so that I don't stand out in the street. If I don't get a job for a day, I just wander around in the city centre, looking at thousands of passers-by and at the street vendors, shops, and places. I can get some rest in a mosque or go to one of the many cinemas near by. (...) Despite all this, for me Tehran is an alien place. (...) I know some friends who work in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where many new buildings are being built. They live on the site and if I am desperate I can go and stay with them. (...) I wish to get married and start a family, but there are no prospects. Most Afghanis who have come to Iran are men and I don't know any local people. Unlike any other city in the world one's position in this city is more crucial than ever. Whether standing in the inside or the outside, in private or in public can be as essential as freedom and captivity, as crucial as life and death. The violation of this city's rules is enough to stir a revolution at any moment.
The project City of Revolutions, was conceived three years ago as a film about the city of Tehran. It would combine archival images and found footage together with my filmed material from of the daily life, the social fabric, the architecture and the urban landscape of Tehran. The archival material is reflecting the Constitutional Revolution of 1911, the protests and demonstrations prior to the 1953 coup d’etat, the White Revolution of 1963, and finally the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A narrative script with a voice over would blend together the personal story of an Iranian leftist fugitive named Mashallah Vargha with the history of the city. Vargha was director of the homeland security of Iran during the years after the coup d’etat, but had to run away because at the same time he was an undercover agent of the communist party of Iran. Varga was lucky to be informed on time and escaped execution. With the help of the communist party he kept hiding in Tehran for almost 6 months before he fled to Europe. In his memoirs Shadows of Fear and Hope recounts the period of hiding in Tehran and among other things he describes the buildings, the neighborhoods, the life and the architecture of the city, with the eyes of someone who is hiding. Passages from his book are used in my film. "Underground rooms, rooftops, deserted houses and the vast urban landscape of Tehran was my shelter [...] Most of the times I was able to see only bits of what was happening outside. Through windows, half opened doors and holes through walls I was trying to keep an account of reality [...] Trying to make a story out of fragmented views and distorted sounds". On January 2010 I met Mashallah Vargha in his home in Prague. I interviewed him and he showed me his personal photographic archive. In most of the images he stands next to or behind the Shah of Iran. This personal archive would have been part of the film too. The memoirs of Mashallah Vargha Shadows of Fear and Hope originally written in Farsi have been translated into English especially for the script of the City of Revolutions.
The research for this work took several years, a trip to Tehran and a trip to Prague. During my trip to Tehran in December of 2009 my goal was to organize a small production team that would take over the pre production and production of the film. During this period of 25 days my phone was taped in, I was followed and my Iranian friends and associates have been under surveillance.
Three days before my departure, during a location scouting down town in Tehran, a group a Basij (Guards of the Revolution) stopped our taxi and took my two associates for interrogation to an unknown location with the excuse of a photo shoot of governmental buildings. They were held and interrogated for approximately two hours.
I have left Tehran with the fear that my film would harm the people that wanted to work for it. For them it may have been an act of resistance and freedom against a suppressive regime but for me it was an issue of responsibility and appreciation.
Tehran remains, at large the same after all these years, with the old buildings standing as monuments of a turbulent past reminding us of a turbulent present. The current situation in this country has been the main obstacle to go back and complete the project. Last but not least my interest to Iran and particularly to Tehran’s story springs from the fact that my mother is Iranian and that Mashallah Vargha is actually her uncle and part of my family. After I saw his personal photo archive I found history is not a distant document anymore. It became part of my family's photo album. Several documents, images, texts, and audiovisual material has been collected during this research that it would be able to reflect the different phases of this journey.
Stefanos Tsivopoulos