ifilm exclusive report on Iranian film ‘My Brother Khosrow’

Watch ifilm exclusive on Iranian film ‘My Brother Khosrow’ directed by Ehsan Biglary, produced by Saeed Malekan and starring Shahab Hosseini.

Below are the highlights of the report.

ifilm: We have all kinds of genres in movies. In Iran, dramas and comedies are warmly welcomed.

Movies about psychological issues, well, they have their own audiences and we only have a few of them in Iran.

But now, we have a movie called ‘My Brother Khosrow’, which is one of them, directed by Ehsan Biglari and produced by Saeed Malekon.

Making a movie about psychological issues may be a constant concern for the director and they have to do a lot of research about it.

Biglary: There was no special spark. I already mentioned that I and Ms. Hashempour, the scriptwriter, always thought about how we can make a movie on psychological issues and work on a story that we like.

Anyhow, every story has roots in our past, our experiences and imaginations.

The story revolves around this subject that a person with a mental issue comes to his brother’s house and is supposed to stay there for two weeks; the brother is a successful person who is busy with his work and life.

The process of getting along with a mental patient and putting up with him was a good start for the beginning of our story.

The initial idea was this is a person with a mental issue who is supposed to stay at his brother’s house and based on this, we began expanding the idea, doing research and going to mental hospitals and talked to the psychologists and met patients. We visited hospitals for one year and kept doing research.

We wanted to make a film not far from scientific facts because with regards to psychological issues, a mental patient is used only in scary movies or only for creating horror.

We wanted to change that perception. The issue was our concern for years - my concern and the other scriptwriter’s concern.

ifilm: You have to be really lucky that while you’re writing a screenplay, you have an actor in mind, and that actor accepts that role.

Biglary: In fact, he was the only character that we had in mind while writing the screenplay.

We thought that he is the only one who fits the character, Khosrow, and we kept writing the screenplay with him in mind, I mean Shahab Hosseini.

I didn’t know whether he would accept taking on the role and I didn’t know whether it would happen or not but we wrote the role with him in mind.

The only one who could play this about 40-year-old character which is not stereotypical in the cinema industry of Iran was Shahab.

Fortunately, having read the screenplay, he liked it. He came and took on the role and he also supported us financially.

MG/AI/AG