iFilm's exclusive report on ‘We are All Sinners’

iFilm exclusive report on Iranian feature film ‘We Are All Sinners’, directed by Hassan Nazer, starring actress Niousha Zeighami, and with scriptwriter Peyman Abbasi.

Below is a transcription of the report's highlights.

iFilm: Hassan Nazer is the director of ‘We Are All Sinners’ and he’s not a first-time director. He has already made films abroad as well.

Nazer: I already had another feature film ‘The Morning of Ash’. It was screened in Iran.

‘We Are All Sinners’ was my second feature film. The next one is ‘Utopia’.

I usually work on stories that have happened in reality. I get into contact with the person and talk to him/her and I depict whatever that has happened to him/her in real life.

iFilm: Hassan Nasser is interested in recreating real events in life. ‘We Are All Sinners’ is based on a true story that Peyman Abbasi, the scriptwriter, experienced, and the actress Niousha Zeighami initially proposed that the script has to be written.

Zeighami: One day, Peyman and Rambod Javan had a meeting in our offices. They were supposed to give an interview. They were taking photos and were really happy.

All of a sudden Mr. Abbasi’s wife called and said that Parmis wasn’t walking properly; that she wasn’t walking the way she always does; she had lost her balance. She thought she’s doing that because she didn’t want to go to school.

From that very night, their life turned into hell. They found out that there is a tumor in their child’s brain. All doctors told him that the child is going to die in about 48 or 72 hours.

When I remember those days, I feel terrible. Either way, those days passed. I asked Peyman to turn this strange story into a screenplay for a movie.

Abbasi: You see, usually when we write and create something, we’ve lived some part of it or even if we ourselves haven’t experienced it, we’ve seen people who have and it has left a trace in our memory. So we recount it.

We all have sweet and bitter experiences. I think writing about the sweet experiences is enjoyable. But recounting bitter experiences like this one is a hard thing to do, harder than writing a normal screenplay.

iFilm: In the movie, actor Amir Aghai experiences what Peyman Abbasi did in real life.

Abbasi: Amir Aghai had taken on my role in another film titled ‘Bad Dream’. He is a good friend of mine.

There was a scene that really happened to me in real life when I had my hair shaved because I wanted to sympathize. When Amir was playing that scene, I was on the scene and it was really strange. I was wondering how he could play the part so perfectly even though he hadn’t experienced such a thing. He is a great actor.

iFilm: The name of this film went through a lot of changes to finally become ‘We Are All Sinners’.

Nazer: First it was ‘This is Iran’ but I was told that the title had already been used. As we were getting the permit to start filming, ‘This is Iran’ was being screened.

Then we were told to change the title and pick ‘Me and My Kid’. I thought the name doesn’t really suit a feature film; we’d better change it to something that matches the film.

Based on the song in the film, which is about sinners, we chose ‘We Are All Sinners’.

AI/AG