Sheffield DocFest 2024: A Move (by Elahe Esmaili) | Review

With efficiency and realism, A Move, directed by Elahe Esmaili, paints a portrait of contemporary Iranian society fracturing over the issue of women’s freedoms, caught between religion and modernity. This short documentary, which had its world premiere at Visions du Réel 2024 and its UK premiere at Sheffield DocFest 2024, captures a few days in the life of the Iranian filmmaker’s family.

Elahe and her sisters have gathered at the family home in Iran to help their parents prepare for their move. Elahe, wearing pants and with her head and arms uncovered, is quickly scolded by her mother, who is veiled and whose days are punctuated by the call to prayer. When the family visits Uncle Hossein in the countryside for his birthday, Elahe is ordered to cover her head to avoid bringing dishonor to the family: “If he makes a comment about you, we’ll all be in shame,” one of her sisters retorts. Women are the primary guardians of a system that restrains them. Indoctrinated from a young age, they conform to the demands of the state religion for fear of losing their status in society and being rejected by their loved ones. The topic is so taboo that they sometimes have a distorted view of what their relatives actually think. When Elahe tells her mother and sisters that Uncle Hossein said that while he prefers she wears the hijab, he cannot force her because everyone is free to make their own choices, she shatters the myth they had of this highly respected male figure in the family, a professor at a religious university.

However, despite the regime’s violent repression, dissent is growing stronger in Iranian society. This is evidenced by the protests following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022, driven by the revolutionary slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.” Several times in the film, the visual approach adopted by the director reinforces this sense of division within society, showing that the rift extends to the family level. At Uncle Hossein’s, for example, a shot shows family members praying on the terrace while, along the adjacent wall, the rest of the family continues to chat and joke.

Without special staging effects, A Move manages to capture with strength and eloquence, in a very condensed timeframe, a major issue in contemporary Iranian society: the effort to shift mentalities towards respecting women’s rights, primarily their right to have autonomy over their bodies.

Explore our coverage of Sheffield DocFest 2024 here.