Suzan Iravanian’s Leakage to compete at 2019 Berlinale

Iranian film Leakage (Nasht), made in cooperation with Czech production and post-production companies, has been selected as part of the Forum section for the 69th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, which will be held from 7-17 February, 2019. BroadcastPro ME conducted an exclusive interview with director Suzan Iravanian and producer Kaveh Farnam back in September 2018.

Suzan Iravanian’s directorial feature debut is about Foziye, a woman who declares she must emigrate to Germany because her husband has disappeared and oil flows out of her body. While the oil empowers her on the one hand, it also brings uncertainty and paranoia into her life.

The 104-minute film serves as a metaphor for migration, the role of women in society, and the world’s obsession with oil and uses language, music, sound and stunning visuals to deliver a powerful message.

The oil serves as a recurring symbol of the world’s obsession with wealth and commodification of natural resources, among other things.

“The film’s real motivation comes from a short story that I wrote for a competition arranged by my creative writing tutor at Oxford University,” explained Suzan Iravanian.

In 2015, she began expanding it into a script for a feature film. Despite Tehran being a world-renowned hub for the Iranian filmmaking industry, Iravanian decided to start the production in her hometown of Shiraz.

“In time, I became sure that oil as an unreachable commodity was what poisoned and metamorphised our perception of reality,” says Iravanian.

“Leakage is an exploration of such manipulated realities within an uncertain geography and a vulnerable community.

Starting off with a low budget, Iravanian later met Majid Barzegar – an award-winning director, writer and producer – and Kaveh Farnam – an award-winning producer and CEO of Prague-based production company Europe Media Nest. He is better known in Dubai as Managing Director of Advanced Media, a distributor for most broadcast and photography products in the market.

While still in post-production, which was partially done in Prague, an excerpt from Leakage was presented in 2018 as part of the ‘Works in Progress’ category at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won a lot of favour with European audiences.

In 2019, the film was selected to be part of the Forum section at Berlinale where it will also see its world premiere. Apart from aspiring to be distributed worldwide, the most important market for Leakage is still the Iranian one. The producers are looking to secure permission to screen from the country’s authorities and are looking at a potential premiere date in autumn 2019.