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Director/Producer: Hassan Khademi
Rapping in Tehran is a documentary film focusing on the lifestyle and activities of rap music singers in Iran. Since the beginning of the 1990s, practically every kind of pop music has been forbidden in the Islamic Republic, but the state security forces crack down particularly hard on rappers. Their outfits, modeled on Western idols, their lyrics about identity conflicts and sexual deprivation, or the fact that young women sing about themselves and their problems are reason enough to keep raiding the few studios in town and closing down the Web sites of the most famous singers and bands. The only consequence is that every closed down site spawns four new ones; the studios that are closed in one place reopen somewhere else and become more attractive to the scene. Rapping in Tehran is about young people's tough struggle against the rigid rules of a government of old men whose resistance in the long run will be in vain, for the music keeps spreading: via the Internet, through exiled rappers who broadcast their lyrics into the country from Dubai, via mobile phones and secret parties. In any case, the courage with which they insist on the right to lead their own lives is cause for admiration.
Hassan Khademi received his MA in sociology from Tehran University. Rapping In Tehran is his first documentary film.
Hassan Khademi
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©2010 United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) |
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