How a film about Iran taught me about power

A woman's escape from abuse

More than a decade ago in Tehran, Tahereh Noori, a thirty-five-year-old housewife, and her two teenage daughters killed her husband. They buried his body beneath the living room floor, under the coffee table.

Years of failed attempts

Tahereh had endured years of abuse, and all her attempts to obtain a divorce through Iran's family courts had failed. The violence had become part of her children's lives as well as her own.

Facing execution under qisas

By the time filmmakers began making An Eye for an Eye, Tahereh had spent fourteen years in prison under the threat of execution.

An unexpected discovery

The filmmaker expected to make a film primarily about Tahereh's tragic life. Instead, making the film transformed their understanding of the strength of Iranian civil society.

Meeting the activists

During research, the filmmakers met activists who had devoted their time to helping people facing the death penalty. They met Farkhondeh Jabarzadegan, an anti-execution activist, and the women who volunteered alongside her.

An informal infrastructure

The activists were lawyers, social workers, and ordinary citizens who had learned to navigate Iran's legal system.They did not work through a single organization or follow a formal plan.Much of their work was unpaid.

The skill of persuasion

The women activists spent hours sitting with Tahereh's husband's relatives, asking them to reconsider.They listened to anger without dismissing it.

Power within constraints

The filmmaker expected to see how Iran's legal system oppressed women. What surprised them was how much influence women had learned to exercise within those constraints. That influence rarely took dramatic form.

Redefining civil society

Civil society can take less visible forms, growing out of knowledge passed from one person to another and relationships built over years.

Power moves elsewhere

Power does not disappear simply because the state is powerful. Power moves into other places. People living under authoritarian governments can still exercise power and influence through relationships, knowledge, social networks, and persuasion.

“Power does not disappear simply because the state is powerful. Power moves into other places.”

Refusing to accept fate

Tahereh's story began with institutional failure.Around her were people who refused to accept that her fate was predetermined.They could intervene and they did, opening possibilities within a system that seemed to leave very few.