FRIDAY June 12 2009 - Election Day - 85% Turnout

I will update this section soon, but briefly this short video shows the massive outpouring of voters to cast their voice and choose the next Iranian President. After all the days of observing the tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters in the day and at night, although we all knew that he would win there was clouded visions that something terribly wrong was going to occur. In the days before the election SMS were going out across the nation warning people against wearing green to the polls; to bring their own pens because the ones provided would be filled with erasable ink; and to attempt to vote at universities. Regardless of which candidate one supported, everyone asked everyone else if they had voted yet that day: the answer was always yes. Iranians take their democracy more serious then any other country I've seen.

Again, similar to Thursday June 11th video, audio has been added. A song by the same artist was chosen. Additional song information will be provided shortly.

For more information on the Azadi DJ Iranian Election Doc series, please visit www.azadi.dj

THURSDAY June 11 2009 - One Day Before Elections - 30 Martyrs

This was shot in Shiraz on the last day before the Iranian election. We had been out and about when someone told us that someone was killed the night before, in Shiraz, while partaking in one of the small Mousavi rally groups. It wasn't clear if it was thought to have been intentional. I remember driving through a village, alas, each and every Iranian village, town and city have countless portraits of the martyrs from the Revolution and the Iran Iraq War. I wonder today as I post this, the 40th day after the deaths of those on June 20th including Neda and tens of scores, how many martyrs will the government kill. Will their painted faces fill future frames? For those into cinematic symbolism, there are 30 portraits of martyrs shown: this is a direct commentary on the official State death toll standing at original 20, and now includes an additional 10 killed while detained. How many more and when will they have enough killing of fellow Iranians who are only participating in their system subscribing to non-violent action?

It is important to mention that the audio is added to the visuals in this video. There is audio that had to be cut so a decision was made to play some music instead. More song info will be forthcoming (artist, rough translation of lyrics, etc). For more information on this Iranian Election doc project, please visit www.azadidj.blogspot.com

Wednesday: June 10th - Last Day of Public Campaigning for the Iranian Election 2009

After Tuesday night's Mousavi public rally, we decided we needed to stretch our legs and we made a dash out of town. Not really, but I figured that I would charter a helicopter; you see, only the police and army have copters in Iran. As some will recall, I absolutely love 125cc, so I took one for a spin. You must get what I'm doing here, right? Actually, we had hired a private taxi to go to Kish to pick up a duty free DVD player and the driver's wife's brother's sister's cousin's son's friend's cat got sick, so we stopped off in Shiraz. I'm glad we did; the cat has eight more lives and we saw what the rest of the country looked like in the build up to Election Day.

Shiraz was just as dramatic during the last night of public campaigning. Only one more night to put posters on your car (don't do it tomorrow because it will be impounded at best); just a few more hours of dancing in the streets; green hijabs will still be sold out in the weeks to come, but tonight is the night so put it on and wave it like you just don't care!

Although almost all Tehrani bazaaris said they support Mousavi, including the one who picked us hitchhiking (see Monday June 7th 2009), there was not as much paraphenia as Shiraz: every wire, wall, window was decked in Mousavi's green and Ahmadinejad's red.

Later that Wednesday night, all tucked in at my cousin's house, I reviewed the previous four nights of footage. I imagined if I were a visual forensic specialist: based on this footage, which candidate has the most supporters?

If I were Ahmadinejad, I would be green with envy, because everyone knew the answer to that question. Just one more night to celebrate and then one more day of patience until election day. With all of these numbers, how could Mousavi not handsomely win?

Tuesday: June 9, 2009 -Mousavi Public Appearance @ Radio & TV - Tehran Iran - Seven Weeks Ago

The excitement continued to build. After a busy day we decided to hold a mock election on this Tuesday night. We were voting for who could sing the best Mousavi chant. In the end Aliakbar won. I wanted to make a joke to a youngster who was younger then 18 yet older then 15 that his vote wouldn't count. You see, in the last election, where Ahmadinejad won in the run off, the age of suffrage was 15: one and half years into his presidency, Iran changed the age to 18. In the end I didn't, though I probably should have extended the joke to all those present in the room, for, it would later appear, that none of the votes counted.

This was Mousavi's last public appearance before the election that I witnessed. In Iran, all public campaigning which includes the candidates and their supporters stops on the day before election day, in this case Wednesday night, June 10th, 2009.

What is most interesting in this video is a) the complete freedom of expression between police, army and both the supporters of Mousavi and Ahmadinejad. Clearly, there are very few Ahmadinejad supporters, but nonetheless, there was almost no violence between the two camps that I saw (except for the cut arm in the June 8th clip). Also what this clip documents like no other source material, is the chants of the Mousavi camp, how they start, who leads them, how they shift and how they are so creative.

As stated, subtitles will be coming soon, but it is very important to note for the time being the following:

1) 44 seconds in - Mousavi supporters scream at flag waving Ahmadi supporter "LIAR, LIAR, LIAR"
2) 1:05 minutes in - Mousavi supporters seated are chanting, "If there is any cheating, Iran will not sleep. If there is no cheating, Ahmadi will come in fifth place out of four candidates."
3: 2:25 minutes - Mousavi candidates changing up their chants leading to: Mousavi we love you!

The debates in the Iranian election played an enormously important role in generating even more interest in the election, after all, this election would be the first one where public debates between candidates would take place. Unlike other political systems, Iranian debates were between two candidates at once, instead of, for instance, all candidates for a party's presidential nominess as is found in the US system. As an aside, instead of two possible candidates for president, there were four candidates in the Iranian election of 2009: Mousavi, Karrroubi, Rezai and Ahmadinejad (in no particular order).


Jahan Azadi

Monday: June 8th, 2009 - Tehran, Iran - Seven Weeks Ago

This is what occurred on Monday, June 8, 2009, actually seven weeks ago in Tehran Iran. Earlier this day we had gotten caught up in the traffic that resulted from the government buses that carried Ahmadinejad supporters. We received a call about the massive Mousavi rally that spanned the entire 20km of Vali-e asr. Simply put, there was no way we were going to reach it especially with the clutch in the taxi burning out. Instead, we took the Tehran metro all the way to the end of the line. With each stop, the conductor would hold the doors long enough to allow Ahmadi supporters to jump from car to car praising his and the Ayatollah's health. Tehran metro cars are actually three cars connected so you can see very long as well as travel in between the cars ~ it was packed with thousands of people. The authorities have recently changed one of the last station's names and made it a Shahid stop - that is named after a martyr, yet the map in the car as well as the physical letters on the metro stop did not convey the new naming scheme. Only with the announcement did we know that the station name. A woman on the train, in her 40s or 50s, spoke in a very loud voice ~ "Where is Mirdamed!?!? What are we not stopping!?!" She knew better of course but was trying to make a point of the martyrdom the state places on some ignoring those sacrifices of others. One of the Ahmadinejad supporters, appearing to be in his 20s, responded its changed, Thank God and praising the martyrs. The back and forth between the young man and the older woman progressed until the end of the line when she finished and put him into silence mode "One God, we all have the same God." His eyes pierced and I thought a knife was going to come out, really.

Getting out of the subway, there were no taxis that would go in the direction we had to go because of the very serious traffic from the Ahmadinejad back-up. Everyone would wave some one down to no avail. We decided to walk down the exit ramp to the freeway ~ not sure way nor who's idea it was. A fancy car stopped upon my hitching thumb and a bazeeri invited us to take us were we needed to go. It was surreal ~ a very sharp dressed man, who had decided to join the Mousavi camp and distribute CDs, fliers, and flow charts that connects all of Ahmadinejad's ministers through marriage.

We waited until night fall and ventured out again.

This is what we saw.

Merci, Jahan

Sunday: June 7th, 2009 - Tehran, Iran - Seven Weeks Ago

This Sunday, July 26, 2009, will be exactly seven weeks from the first rally I documented (Sunday, June 7th, 2009). For the next three weeks with each day, a corresponding vision of what was occurring in Iran, seven weeks ago to the day, will be presented. Don't worry how I got my hands on the footage, or more importantly, escaped the Basij and got the footage out of Iran. With these caveats, I will let you know that what I present each night over these next three weeks without fail, will be the rawest of raw footage. If you were to ask many filmmakers if they would allow their raw footage to be seen by anyone other than the creative team, you would be snickered at with a reassuring smile 'not in your life'. Smiles and all, this rule must be broken for I cannot fathom a bigger exception than what is in the present. This first installment was filmed on Vali asr, Sunday, June 7th, 2009: Five Days Before Election Day. Chodafez, Jahan Azadi

Introduction: "Iran Seven Weeks Ago" Documentary Series

I was in Iran.

I am green with power to fully begin to discuss what happened in Iran.

Since returning in late June/early July, I have been hesitant, not knowing how to craft the documentary that I shot there.

(Never say) never have I been so cognizant of identity, censorship, safety, screams, democracy, participation, violence and repression with a film that I have edited as I am now with the present hundreds of gigs of footage, interviews and photos documenting the weeks around the 2009 Iranian election. (In late 2003, I did not produce a screenplay I had written entitled "Threesome" out of fear that I would be visited by a US government agency; as it turns out I should have made it after all: they came nonetheless; but that's another story).

I have tossed and turned with narrative structures and devices to deliver the scope of what is cinematically possible to convey in vibrant and operatic magnitude what began in Iran before the election, on election day, and the weeks after, marked with massive peaceful rallies ,greeted with severe government violence, and continuing into the current position of reconfiguration and popular dissent. I filmed the movement without even realizing it. For me, I felt like I didn't sleep a wink. Beginning with the first night of arrival, everywhere one looked, TVs broadcast debates between the four candidates. There were marked differences in charisma, honesty, expertise, and persona. I happened to be staying in Central-North Tehran. Vali-Asr is one of the world's longest roads: it is the longest boulevard in all of the Middle East running the distance of the city: the metro stammers over more than 18000 km2. I live in nYc which doesn't compare in size: the frogger dimension of crossing a street in Cairo may apply, for I even saw a woman hit by a 125cc.

In the full week before Election Day (June 12), each night, thousands came out in droves driving and dancing the Vali Asr strip. It was amazing to see the almost lack of government interference each of these nights. Alas, I did come too close to a Basij and saw some of their handy work. Later, police gave chase and we ran and screamed to safety, well most of us anyway. The last night of public campaigning was Wednesday June 10. State run TV gave a couple of hours to Ahamdinejad playing preference, while the green supporters came out in great numbers.

In a separate entry, I will describe Iranian public political campaigns but in brief and in relationship to US campaigns, there is limited fundraising. Certainly none of the candidates spent more than $1 billion US dollars as Obama and McCain did in 2008 or close to the $300 billion Bloomberg will spend over his three campaigns running from 2001-2013, alas in a city with only eight million inhabitants. Political campaigning in Iran has two sides: Ahmadinejad supporters will be provided transportation in government provided buses (thousands for his largest rallies), will be treated to a delicious chelo kabab lunch or dinner and possibly paid with cash money, or perhaps a sack of rotting potatoes. Opposition candidates' supporters will seemingly have a meeting place and whoever shows up shows up. There are no volunteers in t-shirts directing people where to stand or which route to take; all the cars, faces, people, hijabs and posters are color-coded and created on an individual basis; instead of pop music blaring out of campaign speakers, it rocks it from random cars and their dancing passengers; from what I could tell, these first nightly unorganized and spontaneous rallies formed the basis for the massive and demonstratively powerful movement that would come beginning with the day after the election; instead of playing music that US candidate supporters can sing along with, Iranian supporters, again on an individual basis, make up their own exceptionally creative slogans and chants interspersed with renditions of 1979 revolutionary songs sung in the key of g(reen). The best ones radiate across the plethora of voices picking up to a deafening crescendo of spirit, belief, conviction and passion in democracy, participation and strength in numbers. Equally important, they are passed via text messaging reaching a broader audience. The green chants are quickly reworked by Ahmadinejad supporters to refocus their message back to Mousavi; it would be hard to find an expert on either side who would claim that Ahmadinejad and his supporters are more creative and inspiring than the green supporters.

This is all to say that I have never ever seen anything like what I saw in Iran. Every single democratic republic should be envious.

This brings us back to those hundreds of gigabytes. This Sunday, July 26, 2009, will be exactly seven weeks from the first rally I documented (Sunday, June 7th, 2009). For the next three weeks with each day, a corresponding vision of what was occurring in Iran, seven weeks to the day in the past, will be presented. I believe I am one of the only people to have documented the Iranian election of 2009. Don't ask how I got there. Don't worry how I got my hands on the footage, or more importantly, escaped the Basij wrath and got the footage out of Iran. With these caveats, I will let you know that what I present each night over these next three weeks without fail, will be the rawest of raw footage. If you were to ask many filmmakers if they would allow their raw footage to be seen by anyone other than the creative team, you would be snickered at with a reassuring smile 'not in your life'. This rule most be broken.

The final film will resemble the footage shared over the next three weeks only insomuch as it will be crafted using the visuals. For example, the final cut will permit the story to be more fully told. Moreover, full faces of the participants will be able to be shown. Perhaps one day I'll even be able to release under my Christian name. Those future thoughts have no place in my head or on your screen at this time. Right now is the present and man, is it happening. I support the human rights, civil rights and justice movement that is here, and is occurring now. If you are on the outside of Iran, do not heed pundits or experts who rationalize and predict where this green wave is rippling, splashing and crashing with resounding people power. If you are in Iran, we hear you so loud and so clear; we support you; and we are doing whatever it is we can to demonstrate our incredulous support for your cause, and as you know better than any of us presently on the outside, this is your cause. I went to every rally where I knew I wouldn't be picked up by Basij on first sight; I recorded every Allaho Akbar; I spoke with those who were filming and posting; I talked to man, woman, under 30 and over 65. I cried. I almost wet my pants. I was one inch away from being in a secret detention center, blindfolded, handcuffed, interrogated and beat. I was followed. My camera was almost confiscated. I had to erase footage on another camera which was searched by baton-wielding Basij after they forced our taxi off the road ~ the bearded one on the back of the bike almost stuck his head in through the window as he screamed ~ I'll take one cinematic causality. All of that and then some is to come, but for now and starting on Sunday will be raw, unedited sections that correspond to the same day seven weeks ago in Iran. I offer this just to share it, to give some perspective as to what occurred and to share the document of what really started the week before the election and what will continue indefinitely until there is change in Iran - you can count on it.

I do not have the time to finely hone and craft the visuals and audio as I would like. As such, be prepared. Everything will be edited as it occurred - no sequence can be shifted in time, that is, everything you see is presented in a 100% commitment to chronology of the events - a true Bressonian touch for the green movement itself, documented, provides the emotions in the moments when they occurred, in the sequence in which they occurred. The only thing is that scenes will be omitted or edited in duration, but not placement in their chronological order. As you can imagine, this will be an enormous undertaking in itself - regardless, with each evening a new video will be presented reflecting the day in Iran seven weeks ago. It's a bit ambitious and I don't know if the posting will occur at 10PM to coincide with the Allaho Akbars shouted from roof tops or at 4AM.

Until soon,

Jahan Azadi


azadidj AT gmail.com

www.azadi.dj

* The video clips from the series may not be used in any commercial production, media platform or broadcast without license. They can be used for education, discussion, enjoyment and excitement with no further permission needed.

IN BRIEF: Three Week Iranian Election 2009 Documentary Series

What will follow, starting on Sunday, July 26, 2009 will be the release over a period of three weeks raw footage from one of the only documentaries that captured the Iranian Election of 2009. This is not to say that this is the completed documentary - not at all!

I am sharing this footage to do my part in keeping the movement alive, especially with those outside of Iran, who did experience in person, in action, the events leading up to the Iranian Election and the weeks that came after.

It is one thing to read the Western press, many times offering slanted and misinformed views. It is another thing to see all of the citizen journalism video reportages that have been posted on video sharing sites by the Iranian people themselves. In addition, after the international media were kicked out in the days after the election, the information that did get out was sometimes second and third person reports.

I was there. I filmed the entire process. This is what happened.

I do not know when the doc will be released but that is the least important part of this whole story. What is essential is to communicate the amazing democratic movement that was witnessed within Iran. As some of you may know, I do not like the predicting that many journalists/experts state. I will make only one prediction: the green movement will be remembered and relived as something just as important as the movements led by Gandi, MLK as well as African independence movements amongst others.

It is as if the Iranians have shown the world what is democracy, what is freedom.

I hope you enjoy this experimental project positioning an "episode" released each night that corresponds to that day in Iran seven weeks ago. Please check in daily and enjoy!

Best,

Jahan Azadi

azadidj AT gmail.com