TEHRAN -- Bahram Beizaii and several other cast and crew members attended a question and answer panel after the movie screening at the Felestin Cinema Hall on Saturday. The movie is an entry to the Iranian Films Section at the 27th Fajr International Film Festival.

Beizaii was first to talk about his movie and said, “‘When All of Us Are Asleep’ shows a part of our culture, because cinema itself reflects parts of the culture. This movie talks about culture and not about why I did not make any movies for all these years.
Beizaii returned eight years after his box office hit “Killing Mad Dogs”.
“The screenplay was written right after the unfinished production of ‘The Edge of the Cliff.’ And I believe this new production mostly refers to the first film of Iran’s cinema history ‘Haji Aqa, Cinema’s Actor’.
“I also have a trilogy about filmmaking and cinema which contains the screenplays of ‘Objection’, and ‘The Edge of the Cliff’. After this trilogy I don’t think I want to make any more movies about cinema,” he noted.
He later added, “It was during the time when I was making my first movie ‘Uncle Moustache’ in 1970 when actress Azar Shiva objected to the prevailing situation in the cinema of those years, and this lead to her withdrawal from acting. I always felt that my filmmaking began with an objection and that’s why I wrote the screenplay ‘Objection.’ But neither the cinema of those years nor the modern cinema of today understood her objection.”
He also expressed his regret about the pressure the films’ capitalistic financial backers put on filmmakers and the problems they create for the process of film production, and continued, “Did you really want me to wait eight years for an investor to produce a film? If I didn’t make any movies after all these years, I would gradually forget how to make films, but the wait was worth it, as I do know the cinema after these 40 years.”
Beizaii is convinced that his “When All of Us Are Asleep” features all the bad aspects of society in which nobody cares about the other, nobody wants to standi in his own place, and that these things have become part of the culture.
“When All of Us Are Asleep” refers to the opinions the capitalist film investor impose on filmmakers in the artistic fields in which they have no special expertise.
“When producing ‘The Edge of the Cliff’ was halted, some critics said Beizaii did not want to make a movie, and why would anybody invest in his ingenuity. I don’t claim to be genius. We must realize that each director looks at these issues differently.”
He later alluded to the history of Iran’s cinema and said, “It is said we have a one-hundred-year-old history of cinema. But our cinema is far too fragile and we still have technical problems of sound and imagery in our film screenings.”
Referring to the question asked on the issue of dialogue in his recent production, he said, “In my opinion, cinema has the least time and its every minute is precious, so it must be compact. In no way do I agree with the notion of today’s time-consuming reality. We kill time in our daily lives. Should we also make a time-consuming film, while we remove all the curtains to make a compact production?”
He continued, “I still think I have not yet made a movie that I have really liked. But given the current situation, this movie is my best choice. Of course, I am not dissatisfied with any one of my other productions nor do I think any of them are similar to each other.”
He then referred to his short film “Speaking Carpet” and went on to say, “This is a film with a mythical theme but no body talked about it, and no one tried to discover it. Let’s stop all these divisions. Why do we think a filmmaker must make a film based on our taste and meet our needs, while each filmmaker has his own expectations? This film is about reality and that it is too vulnerable.
“During the years I was focusing on films with mythical themes, the critics wrote things which made me stop working. They believed I was far removed from reality. And as a result, today, no producer wants to invest in a movie with a complex mythical theme. Cinema is an expensive art form,” he remarked.
On featuring Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh in his movie, he said, “While I was making the movie, I was looking for a non-controvertial book to show and chose Shahnameh. But later I noticed one could read new concepts into it. We read books like Shahnameh but we know that our real life is very different,” he concluded.
Afterwards, the film’s music composer Mohammadreza Darvishi spoke and said that working with Beizaii has always been one of his best experiences, and that the music was recorded with the cooperation of the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra.
Other cast members Mojdeh Shamsaii, Alireza Jalalitabar, Shaqayeq Farahani, Hedayat Hashemi, and Hesam Navvab Safavi were also present and spoke briefly at the session.
Photo: Director Bahram Beizaii and actress Mojdeh Shamsaii attend a review session for “When All of Us Are Asleep” on January 31, 2009 after its screening in the 27th Fajr International Film Festival.