This film directed and produced by the Luxembourgish Cyrus Neshvad, whose parents fled the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 when he was a child, is among the five nominees in the category of best short film.

A destiny deemed "crazy", which Neshvad and his team obviously did not anticipate when this 17-minute film, with minimalist dialogues, was shot in early 2021 in the sanitized setting of Luxembourg airport.

Less than two years later, he finds himself in the spotlight when the whole world is moved by the uprising in Iran triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, whom he was accused of wearing his veil badly.

The wave of protests was very harshly suppressed by the theocratic regime.

"For me, the film is about a woman, that is to say women in Iran who are under the domination of men," said the filmmaker, aged forty, in an interview with AFP. 'years.

In Iran, "if a woman wants to do something, or go to visit something, the man (her father or her husband) must agree and write the paper and sign it," he explains.

In "The Red Suitcase", a teenager arriving alone from Tehran removes her veil to escape the fifty-year-old who is waiting for her at the airport in a suit and tie, with the wedding bouquet of flowers.

This gesture is a moment of "courage", comments Cyrus Neshvad, a way of saying to the public "+ follow me +, and like me + take off your hijab, do not accept this domination, and let's be free +".

"Do I listen to my family?"

For Nawelle Evad, the French actress – born to an Algerian mother – who plays the Iranian teenager, this role had a particular echo.

"I left home around 19 and also found myself alone in a city I didn't know at all, in Paris," she told AFP.

"It's the same thing in this airport, which really represents the in-between between the past and the future".

Franco-Algerian actress Nawelle Evad, January 30, 2023 in Paris © JOEL SAGET / AFP

About the veil, the 22-year-old actress of Muslim education explains that she "used to wear it".

"For me it has never been an obligation, the object has become more cultural than religious," she continues.

And in the short film her character "removes her veil in spite of herself, it is not her will", judges the actress.

"That's what I find so beautiful in this film... the doubts that everyone, in any country, in any culture, is confronted with", continues Nawelle Evad.

"What should I choose for myself? Do I listen to my family? Do I make my own choices?"

The announcement of the selection of "The Red Suitcase" for the Oscars enchanted Cyrus Neshvad, who sees in it the opportunity to make the planet even more aware of "the cause of Iranian women".

"It's a crazy feeling to make art for reality. I've never had the feeling of being in reality with the cinema so much," says Nawelle Evad.

According to the United Nations, whether celebrities, journalists, lawyers or ordinary citizens, at least 14,000 people have been arrested in Iran since the outbreak in September 2022 of this wave of protests to defend women's freedom.

© 2023 AFP