Pegah Ahangarani on Cannes Doc ‘Rehearsals for a Revolution’: ‘More Than Ever, This Film Had To Be Released Now, So People Can Put What Is Happening in Iran Into Perspective’

Iranian director, actress and activist Pegah Ahangarani is in Cannes with documentary “Rehearsals for a Revolution,” which sketches Iran‘s failed attempts at self-determination over the past four decades from her personal prism and provides a timely take on the country’s turmoil that goes beyond the headlines.

“Rehearsals for a Revolution,” which bows in the fest’s Special Screenings section, consists of five portraits of the director’s relatives and mentors, including one of her school teachers, representing five expressions of resistance from the early days of 1979, when the Islamic regime started, until the U.S.-Israel-Iran war that started in February.

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Ahangarani, who lives in London, spoke to Variety about her country’s failed attempts to overthrow the regime as the Iranian people “keep hoping and going back to protest and demand their rights.”

The film opens with a line about the Persian word “yād” which, it says, means not just memory but the past returning to the present. Was that the genesis of this project?

Well, the whole impulse of the film came with this idea of remembrance. Of thinking about how can you connect with your past. And also how your past can, in a way, interfere or keep surfacing within your present.

When I decided how to structure the film, I thought not only that I would have chapters, but that I would have a sort of first-person introduction before the chapters actually start. The whole film is about the process of remembering. How the smell of gunpowder reminded me of my father when I was a child. It’s a kind of Proustian madeleine.

How does the recent acceleration of tragic events in Iran tie in with this film?

I’ve always thought that it would be interesting to build an entire feature film, just with my archives, with some archives and a voice. I just kept dreaming about this film and wondering whether it wasn’t too ambitious, too crazy. I sat down at my editing suite and started building one chapter after the other. The fact that it’s so timely is one of those circumstances that happen in life and cinema and that, of course, you cannot predict or even wish for. But it made us rush on the last chapter. We thought that we couldn’t miss this situation. That it’s more relevant than than ever, much more than just a piece of news about what’s going on in Iran. More than ever, this film had to be released now, so people can put what is happening in Iran into perspective. Finally, here we are. This lifetime dream or ambition came true.

There is a phrase your uncle says: “I’m restlessly devoted and in love with failed revolutions.” It seems so revelatory. Can you elaborate?

There is some sadness in considering the fact that my country and my people have always failed in its attempts to express their will for change. And this is not just about this Islamic revolution. You can go even further back in Iranian history. Since the constitutional revolution at the beginning of the 20th century, it’s always been one failure after the other. One repression after the other. And the people have never been able to reach their their aspirations. But at the same time, what goes with this number of failures is the resistance and the fact that they have always bounced back. It’s not because they [Iranians] have failed once that they have stopped believing in the same values and fighting for their rights and standing up against repression. And so this also gives a lot of hope and admiration for the people that have not given up because of one failure. They still have the same fighting spirit. That is what I think the tone of the film is. There are massacres and repression, but the Iranian people keep hoping and going back to protest and demand their rights.

Nobody has a crystal ball, but what what are your hopes for the future in Iran?

Well, I think if we look back at Iranian history, we see that there’s always been this patriarchal, extremely vertical power structure under which some regimes — whether it was the monarchy or now this Islamic Republic — have always been deciding for the Iranian people. And the people have not been able to make any decision for themselves. So what they need now is to have this power themselves. To become active, to have their own agency. And of course, it’s not war that will bring agency to the Iranian people. War is decided by some [outside] authorities, and it just brings destruction. But the Iranian people are extremely clever. They have experience, they have knowledge. They have what they need to rule their own world. So all I can wish is that the people are given their own agency.