Director – Elia Sadeqi
Genre – Short, Drama
Duration – 6 minutes 42 seconds
Country – Iran, Islamic Republic of
Language – Persian
Year – 2016
SYNOPSIS : “Voice I Am” is clearly criticising the gender discriminations and laws against children and women in Iran and many other middle-eastern countries, raises awareness and try to increase people’s understanding about the issues. As someone who has suffered from strict Islamic laws since I remember especially with the compulsory hijab for females as early as 7 years old when they start school!, also all the gender discriminations and anti-women Islamic rules running by the government as follow: men are given custody of boys when they turned two and girls when they turned seven. As of 2003 the law relaxed a bit, allowing women to keep custody of sons until the age of seven. After that time the custody will be taking away from the mother there is no restriction on the number of wives a man can have. They allow to marry four wives, under the Shia Islamic belief system. In family law and inheritance rules, women only receive half as much as their brothers or other male relatives. The husband can prevent his wife from an occupation or technical profession which is incompatible with the family’s interests or the dignity of him or his wife.” Men can initiate a unilateral divorce. One of the most appalling laws is Tamkin, meaning submission or obedience. To be more specific, Tamkin has been defined as the full accessibility and unhampered sexual availability of the woman to her husband. Sexual availability is considered a woman’s duty and a man’s right. Regarding family law, girls are legally allowed to marry at 8-9 years old, ( just recently has changed to 13 years old) while boys must be at least 15 years old. Wives and daughters cannot leave the country without the official permission of their husbands or natural guardian and unfortunately many more unjustified laws which the “voice I am” has pointed to directly.
DMOFF AWARD –
Official Selection September 2016
