ACF - Asian Cinema Fund

2017 Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

LIST Sons of the Judge

Synopsis

The story begins with a family photo taken of my grandfather, the late Ayatollah Haeri and the highest judge in Iran (1940-1964), alongside his six sons (my father is the 2nd from right). None of the sons became a religious figure like their father, but they followed his position as lawyers and judge, each of them with a different political ideology from each other. The subject of this film takes roots in my personal history. My father was a judge, and the world of justice served as my first school. This is a personal story through the relation of Camera and Court that I intend to investigate and show some of the most significant of Iranian social and political History.

Director's Note

In this project, I will go back to my own past, to my childhood. I will keep relying on this personal filiation in order to keep a living dimension a sensitive one. Nevertheless, this reflection will, of course, go beyond the simple frame of my family. It will address the status of image within the exercise of justice. Why should we publicly present a trial? What is the purpose of showing prosecutors or judges’ interrogations? What is the purpose of showing the defendants, the accused? What does the film of an execution and the photos of condemned prisoners altogether tell us?
Within this film, I would like to understand how such a tradition got developed in my country, to what extent it allows us to understand the nature of justice, and, more largely, of Iran’s political history.

Festivals

Still Cut

LIST