Sanaz Azari

During language classes the director is not only taught basic Persian by her teacher, he also opens the gates to Iranian history and culture. Gradually, the lessons morph into a poetic, visual collage that questions the term freedom and the meaning of revolution.

How can we approach a museum today that was built over a century ago to serve colonial propaganda? In Brussels, after five years of renovation, the Africa Museum has reopened its doors, offering new forms of exhibition. Visitors can be seen engaging in discussions with their guides as well as freely wandering through the spaces. This diverse crowd of museum-goers shapes the contours of a place where, despite the new narratives, the past seems to linger unresolved.

This is de facto a film about a film, with the only difference being that the focus is exclusively on the extras. They are filmed while waiting to take their turn, while conversing with others, and thinking about their performances. Although they take their duties very seriously and long to be stars, for the filmmakers, they’re just people that can be coordinated as necessary, nothing more. This film, on the contrary, gives them full consideration, revealing their personalities, what they experience, and what they dream of. The footage comes from many different places where movies are made, involving extras from all different nationalities.

Under the pretext of making portraits of passers-by, the director checks upon the situation in Iran on the eve of the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. The film portrays a society before, during and after the elections, a short dream period in which a change becomes tangible.