"This film is about women, about their bodies. It's a film full of hate, hands, feet, breasts, gender, everything that is impossible to show in Iran," she said. declared, receiving his award.

In "The Nights of Mashhad", a David Fincher-style thriller in the land of the mullahs, director Ali Abbasi is inspired by a resounding news item twenty years ago in Iran: he retraces the journey of the murderer of 16 prostitutes, who during his trial claimed to have wanted to cleanse the streets of Mashhad, one of the main holy cities of Shiism, from vice.

At the heart of the film, Zar Amir Ebrahimi embodies the journalist who tries to unravel the mystery of these murders.

Zar Amir Ebrahimi grew up in Tehran where she took drama lessons.

She has performed in the theater and held important roles in TV movies and series.

Then, she got noticed thanks to sitcoms like "Help Me" (2004) and "Nargess" (2007).

Her career was abruptly interrupted in 2006 due to a sex scandal.

Scandal that pushed her to leave her country for France.

"It's a good story but had humiliations despite my love for cinema. There was a lot of loneliness but luckily there were films," she said in Farsi, reflecting on her broken journey. , in front of the public at the Grand Théâtre Lumière.

When she arrives in Paris, she does not speak a word of French.

She learns it on her own and does odd jobs.

"I didn't know anything about cinema in France. There was no one to help me. It took me two or three years to understand where I was," she told Le Monde newspaper.

She thanked France on Saturday evening, this exotic and paradoxical country which "adores being unhappy".

In "The Nights of Mashhad", his character is also the victim of sexist discrimination.

"I know the difficulties Iranian women face every day," she said at the film's press conference.

"Several of my journalist friends and in particular women left the country just after me", says the one who spoke on stage of "her sister Golshifteh" Farahani, also Iranian who left her country and now lives in France.

Zar Amir Ebrahimi has performed in the theater and held important roles in TV movies and series.

In Iran, the films in which she plays are not screened due to government censorship.

She is known for having lent her voice to the animated film "Téhran Tabou" by Ali Soozandeh (2017), presented at the Cannes Film Festival.

She won the interpretation prize at the Nice film festival with "Bride Price vs Democracy".

She also acted in "Tomorrow we will be free" by Hossein Pourseifi screened at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and at the Hamburg Filmfest.

© 2022 AFP