What if the hijab were mandatory for men? That is what happens to the male actors in Head to Head, the debut feature by Iranian director Ghasideh Golmakani.
The premise is not quite as straightforward as it sounds. Head to Head is a mockumentary about making a fictional film in which men must wear skirts and headscarves. It may have several layers, but Ghasideh is clear about what she wanted to achieve.
"I never wanted to make a conventional film. I wanted to make exactly what I made. It became just what I had imagined," Ghasideh tells The New Arab.
Although Head to Head doesn't necessarily fit the category of a documentary, the film was fully scripted, with every scene carefully planned. That said, the rehearsals allowed some flexibility.
"The structure and the dialogue were already written, but we rehearsed a lot with the actors beforehand. During those rehearsals, I gave them space to improvise a little," she explains.
This flexibility helped Ghasideh capture the film's central reactions. We see a woman directing a production on a male-dominated set, where the actors agree to wear women's clothes and headscarves but begin to complain when the experience becomes uncomfortable.
To capture their reactions, Ghasideh asked the actors to wear the clothing during rehearsals, even before they had fully familiarised themselves with the script.
"I didn’t give them the script at the beginning. They read it before each rehearsal session, so it was very fresh in their minds when they performed it," she explains.
"During the rehearsals, I asked them to wear headscarves and dress as women. They were obviously bothered by it. It was warm, and they reacted exactly as I had written."
Beyond the veil
In this sense, Head to Head works like a sociological experiment, with predictable results, at least for Ghasideh.
By exposing the discomfort of actors, whose profession involves stepping into other people's shoes, the film goes beyond challenging an oppressive law to reveal how deeply ingrained gender discrimination is in society.
As she puts it, "What I’m pointing to is our failure, as human beings, to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Nowadays, we judge each other so easily because of religion, nationality, gender or whatever else. I find that increasingly frightening. For me, this film goes beyond Iran. I could have made it in another country, using something other than the veil, and I think it would have carried the same message."
In sharing this, she notes that the hijab, which has been at the centre of many demonstrations, serves as a symbol of the restrictions imposed on women.
For instance, there is a scene where the director shouts 'cut' because the men dressed as women are dancing in ways that women are not allowed to in Iran. But as Ghasideh points out, discrimination against women is hardly exclusive to Iran.
"Women in other countries may not have to wear a hijab, but they still generally face more restrictions than men and are subjected to much greater scrutiny," she says.
"I left Iran when I was 18 and went to France hoping to find liberté, fraternité, égalité," she says. "To my unpleasant surprise, I discovered that we were still very far from equality. In Iranian films and Iranian society, this is more obvious because the contrast is so stark. But it also exists in other societies."
Finding humour in injustice
The restrictions women face also raise questions about the limits of activism, another theme Head to Head explores. In one scene, the crew's van is about to be stopped by the morality police.
Bahar resists putting on a headscarf, seeing it as a humiliation that would also bring the film's role-playing to an abrupt halt.
She is torn between staying true to her principles and avoiding a direct confrontation with the authorities. The reversal of power relations made possible within the film suddenly clashes with the reality outside it.
For Ghasideh, confronting such inequalities has strengthened her determination to challenge them, even if she prefers to do so through her films rather than direct confrontation.
"Somehow, that feeling of injustice between men and women became even stronger in me. I’m not doing things on a large scale, but I always try to reduce inequality in my surroundings as much as I can, and a little through my films as well," she says.
"But I don’t shout too loudly. I’m afraid that shouting can sometimes frighten the listener or the audience. That is also why I chose comedy: it stays with you differently from slogans shouted at full volume."
But how much of Ghasideh is there in Bahar? The similarities between the fictional director and the filmmaker herself are hard to ignore.
"It took me a long time to find the actress because, for different reasons, none of the people I met convinced me. Someone said, ‘Why don’t you play the role yourself? It’s you!’ But I didn’t want to take on that responsibility," she notes.
"It was my first feature, and I needed to concentrate on directing. Luckily, I found her. I think Bahar is very much like me, although she is a little more exaggerated."
The parallels between the two help reinforce the film's approach to sexism. Rather than confronting entrenched discrimination through direct political denunciation, Head to Head relies on irony and comedy to make its point.
"For someone who responds to this kind of irony, I think it works better than a serious treatment of the subject," she explains.
Making a film in Iran can itself be an act of resistance. For Ghasideh, this was particularly apparent in her debut feature, which she wrote, directed, and produced herself despite the lack of financial support.
"I think writing, directing and producing my debut feature was the craziest thing I could have done. What was really difficult was the lack of financial support. It weighed on me so much that I couldn’t think about anything else. I live in Hamburg, so I bought a camera here, went to Iran and said, ‘I’m going to make a film. No matter what.’"
Should men try wearing the hijab?
Despite censorship, conflict and countless other difficulties, Iranian cinema continues to produce a remarkable number of films, some of which circulate widely on the international festival circuit.
"I think we have a very strong culture of resistance. I saw a documentary about Iranian film history in which a producer described filming during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. When sirens warned of an Iraqi bombing raid, they would stop. After the bombing, they would continue shooting," she shares.
"For me, that was beautiful and sad at the same time. It is a form of resistance: art resisting war, conflict and our problems. I think this is deeply rooted in our culture.”
Ghasideh is now preparing her second fiction feature, about an Iranian-German couple in Hamburg. She describes it as "another black comedy, questioning cultural clashes." With another film in the works, we ask whether she believes art, and cinema in particular, can change the world.
She answers with conviction, saying, "I hope the film can make people pause, even briefly, and stop judging each other so easily" and that "this power game between men and women also has to stop at some point. Otherwise, we will never achieve a balanced society anywhere."
Her answer brings us back to the question at the heart of Head to Head: should all men wear a hijab, even for just one day, to better understand women’s experiences?
"No," she says. "They can do whatever they want," she adds, saying she would definitely recommend they at least watch her film.
After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and receiving a Best Screenplay nomination at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, the film is now set to screen at the Chicago International Film Festival
Manuel Halpern is a journalist and film critic, founder and editor of Wild at Heart, and a member of FIPRESCI
Follow him on Instagram: @manuelhalpern_
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