- Every Friday, "20 Minutes" offers a personality to comment on a social phenomenon, in his meeting "20 Minutes with ...".
- Golshifteh Farahani, Iranian actress, thinks of her country but also of the planet.
- Forced to live far from Iran, it has reinvented itself.
The actress Golshifteh Farahani left her native Iran in 2009 to exercise her profession freely. At 36, she pursues an international career and has not lost her sense of humor to evoke her first name which means "Mad flower of love", which goes so well for this solar woman. "People pronounce it my first name" Goldfish "or" Dildo "when it is so simple: you have to think" Goal "as in football and" Shift "as the key on the computer", she confides to 20 minutes .
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The bright #golshiftehfarahani after the interview @golfarahani #star #actress #actress
A post shared by Caroline Vié (@ caroklouk2) on Jan 16, 2020 at 3:19 am PST
Her humor is also discovered in Un divan à Tunis by Manele Labidi, at the cinema on February 12, where she plays a Tunisian shrink who returns to practice in her hometown after studying in France. It is in a Parisian hotel where she promotes this delicious comedy that Golshifteh Farahani has agreed to speak to us about his country and his exile with invigorating force.
Today, would you make the choice to shoot with Leonardo DiCaprio as in 2008 knowing what it would imply?
Of course ! State lies changed my life by forcing me to leave Iran. I regret nothing. But, in fact, I don't really think I have made any choices in my life. It's fate. I am in harmony with what is written because I have a lucky star watching over me. I imagine it golden, very bright. She guides and protects me. My existence is made of music, the only art that makes human beings and gods coexist. Life is like a fish. If you're looking to catch it, it spins between your fingers. If you feed it regularly, it comes very slowly towards you. This is what happened to me and still happens to me.
Do you feel close to the heroine of "A divan in Tunis" who returns to his country?
I can understand his need to return to Tunisia. She has lived in France since her childhood and wishes to help her country while helping herself. I know many people who have made this choice, that of returning to their country of origin at the age of 30 to understand where they come from. It is a fair relationship where everyone ends up finding their account. My case is very different because I grew up in Iran and I was forced to go into exile while I was rooted in my country.
Do you believe in this notion of roots?
It speaks to me but I think there are many ways to experience it. When you are a tree that has grown normally on its land, you feel good, healthy. When you are uprooted young, you can be replanted elsewhere but your roots will have lost their strength to keep you in place. From a certain age, you can no longer uproot a tree, you have to cut it down and it is impossible to replant it. This is what happened to me so I grow my roots inside my body.
Is it still painful?
It is not constant pain. It doesn't hurt everyday. It's a bit like an old, very deep scar that sometimes scratches what makes you think about it from time to time while being used to it.
Like the injuries you sustained when a man attacked you with vitriol when you were a teenager?
It's weird that the French seem very traumatized by this story that happened in Iran when I was 16 years old. I recounted it as something quite commonplace in my country at the time. However, this is only a very small part of the experiences that built me. It was not the end of the world. Of course it deeply marked my soul but I have moved on for a long time. We always move on to something else in Iran, easily and quickly.
Do you think the hard times in your life have been good for you?
I would not say that unhappiness is necessarily a good thing. It all depends on what you do with it! If we drown in it, it only blackens you, embitter you and it is useless! On the other hand, if we use adversity to build wings and fly, it becomes useful. Black must push us towards the light rather than engulf us. It is like a black hole which directs us towards the stars, towards another universe… We understand that only life is important because everything else is only an illusion.
Does this resilience come from your country or is it personal to you?
A bit of both, I think. When you were born in an unstable country, you learn not to get attached to the miseries of life. We know that there is no future and that there is no past: life must be combined with the present. It becomes a habit. We evolve in a permanent storm where only life and survival count. I am a survivor. Even under difficult conditions, I would always find a way to survive. I know that you have to live in the present which gives you the power to live short. There is no room for depression when one is driven by vital energy.
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"Iran admitted Saturday that it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, blaming human error and" US adventurism "for the crash that left 176 people dead" my heart is weeping ... تسليت به خانواده هاى داغدار ... تسليت
A post shared by Golshifteh Farahani (@golfarahani) on Jan 11, 2020 at 1:51 am PST
Do you feel concerned about what's going on in Iran right now?
How not to be ! I managed to stand back for years and then the plane crash landed on me. The situation is so absurd! So sad… I sometimes even have the impression that the government itself is surprised by what is going on! This country looks like a bad joke. With everything that has been going on there forever. There, one has the impression to arrive towards the end of the story, to see the last grains falling in the hourglass. Everything is destroyed but the heart of Iran continues to beat as in these bad movies where the hero always gets up despite the beatings. Art, poetry and people, generation after generation, keep Iran alive because they love it.
Are your loved ones still there?
My whole family is in Iran. We do not have the same perception of the outside with what is shown on the news, and inside when we live on the spot. If you don't go to the demonstrations, you don't risk taking a bullet. What is true is that people's morale is low. I am not worried about their physical health but about their mental. They may be used to it, but they feel helpless. The injustice is so strong and systemic that it cannot crystallize on a person. I reassure myself by saying that even the Soviet Union ended up falling.
Do you want to return to Iran?
Yes very much, but it is not a vital need. When one is in exile, one is a handicapped soul. We lost a leg so we feel wobbly. Even if I came back to Iran, this member could not grow back. So I don't want to think about it. I don't believe in anything so as not to be disappointed. I refuse to try to guess what is going to happen. Life has taught me that hope is dangerous.
Do you see Westerners as spoiled children?
In Europe, people do not look at empty or full glass: they focus on the fact that a little liquid is missing so that it is filled to the brim. They find that it gives them an identity by allowing them to assert themselves. It doesn't annoy me. I even feel great empathy for these reactions. In fact, I find it rather cute. Especially among the French.
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#marrakeshfilmfestival @dior
A post shared by Golshifteh Farahani (@golfarahani) on Dec 3, 2019 at 9:57 am PST
Do you still live in France?
For three years, I have lived between Spain and Portugal. I went towards the sun, towards nature with also the desire to live in places which belong to nobody, which one does not find elsewhere. In France, you always feel in France. In Italy, you are in Italy. These are countries with strong identities. In Portugal and in certain corners of Spain, you are nowhere because you have the feeling of not being with anyone. I like this idea that we all live together, in a form of Bohemian community, united whatever our origins, near the sea with vegetable gardens and music.
Does that restore your faith in the human being?
I believe that this type of behavior is the only hope for humanity. You have to hang on to nature. I am not alone in thinking this. More and more young people are leaving for the villages, whereas in the past everyone was attracted to the city. People of my generation are so unhappy in town that they dream of nature and farms, of an existence where everyone coexists peacefully, where political exiles but also those excluded from society find their place. That suits me because I am 50% a city rat and 50% a child of the jungle. I find my place between the two.
Isn't that incompatible with your acting profession?
I have never stuck to this job. I consider myself more as a musician. I do not depend on my acting career, not because I am rich, but because money does not interest me. I am detached from material things. I prefer not to eat rather than accept any job! I put a distance between this profession and me. I know too many comedians who have trouble coping with the fact that their careers are jagged - which is inevitable. I refuse to put that kind of pressure on myself. If I am offered roles all the better, if not too bad, I depend neither mentally nor physically on the desire of others. Life is too short for that.
What do you want today?
I have everything I want. So I don't want anything. I only want peace, a global peace. I would like people to understand the value of life and the responsibilities they have at the world level. We can no longer say that, since we are protected in Europe, we don't care about Africa. Everything is connected. It is time to unite to save the planet, our boat that is taking on water. It is everyone's business.
Are you an environmental activist or feminist?
I am not an activist at all. I remain discreet in my fights. I was not active for the #MeToo movement because I lived it from the inside, long before the creation of the hashtag, by being forced to exile myself because I am a woman. "It's not the thunderstorms that make the flowers grow, but the rain," says a rusty proverb. I am the rain. I'm fed up with thunderstorms.
Cinema
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