Festival Films A-Z

Persepolis

Production

The Kennedy, Marshall Company
619 Arizona Avenue
Santa Monica, California 90401
USA
Tel.: 310 656 8400
Fax: 310 656 8430

France 3 Cinéma
2.4.7. Films

Cut

Stéphane Roche

Distribution

Prokino
Filmverleih GmbH
Widenmayerstrasse 38
80538 München
Tel.: +49-(0)89-210 114-0
Fax: +49-(0)89-210 114-11
E-Mail:
zentrale@prokino.de
Internet:
www.prokino.de

F 2007, Regie: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud, dF, 95 min.

Synopsis

PersepolisWhen, in 2000, Marjane Satrapi published her autobiographical comic book in France, she quickly became the darling of the critics and the general public.
Based on the book, this animation film tells about Satrapi's childhood experiences in the first years after the Iranian Revolution. The establishment of the Islamic Republic under the leadership of the 'Revolutionary Guards' brings unexpected changes -- Marjane has to wear a headscarf, although that doesn't stop her from dreaming of becoming a revolutionary. Soon after, the first bombs of the Iran-Iraq war start falling. People from the neighbourhood or the family start to disappear without a trace. Marjane's rebellious character becomes increasingly problematic, so her parents decide to send her to Vienna for her own protection. Surrounded by punk music, Abba and Iron Maiden, the 14-year-old experiences a different kind of revolution. She matures, makes the most of her freedom, and experiences the hot and cold feelings of first love, as well as the unpleasantness and loneliness of being an immigrant.

"The greatest risk was to try to do it just like the comic book. People thought we'd just film every panel, and that would make a film. A comic book is not a storyboard: it's a narrative form in and of itself. We had to come up with a filmic language for the story," Satrapi said at the press conference after the world première at Cannes. It quickly became one of the festival favourites and earned it the Jury Prize.

"Dotted throughout with gallows humour, Persepolis maintains the child's point of view so successfully that one gets a far better idea of the background from this simplification than from countless television reports, which doesn't really strengthen our faith in our media," wrote Hanns-Georg Rodek in the Welt.

Dates

2603.10.200720:00CineCitta