Shirin Sohani and Hossein molayemi discuss their Oscar-nominated animation in the shadow of the cypress
Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi
In The Shadow of the Cypress
Written and directed by Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi
In The Shadow of the Cypress is the first and second film respectively of Iranian duo Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi. It tells the story of a former army captain struggling with PTSD from the war who lives by the sea with his daughter. After bearing the brunt of one of his violent outbursts, she decides it’s time for her to leave home. Just as she gathers herself to go, a whale washes up on the beach. As the pair work to keep the whale alive and send it back out to sea, they go through their own processes of grief, fear and healing.
If In The Shadow of the Cypress wins the Oscar, it will be the first Iranian animation to ever do so. Here, Sohani and Molayemi speak to Molly Lipson about how they hope this nomination could help inspire a new generation of Iranian animators and the impact they hope their film can have.
Molly Lipson: Where did the idea for the film come from?
Hossein Molayemi: At first, we just wanted to make an interesting story about a parent and a child that was set in Iran. For the father character we drew on our own fathers – I didn’t have a great relationship with my dad, and Shirin’s father was a veteran from the Iran-Iraq war. He lost an eye and a fragment of shrapnel is still lodged in his skull, and it can make him act strangely and sometimes violently.
ML: What’s the response been like so far?
Shirin Sohani: We get a lot of people messaging us after watching the film and one message in particular that stands out to me was from a woman who said she had been able to release her trauma after seeing it. I didn’t even know how to react to that! It was amazing to hear.
HM: On the one hand we wanted to make a film audiences would enjoy, but on a deeper level we also wanted to make something that would bring about a kind of catharsis in their spirit. I don’t know if we’ve been successful in this, but if we could help release trauma from people’s souls, that’s what we wanted to do.
ML: How did you decide to work together on this film?
SS: We met at university and after I graduated I worked on a project Hossein was directing. I had a really good experience as background designer, production manager and compositor. We worked really well together and realised we had a shared cinematic taste, so we thought it would be good to produce and direct a film together.
ML: Can you talk a bit about some of the design and style choices for the animation?
HM: In terms of the shapes we used, one consideration was how much more expensive it would have been if we’d adopted a more realistic approach, so we had to be more stylised. However, we didn’t want lack of funds to impact the appeal and attractiveness of the film, so that was our challenge. We decided to use geometrical shapes to keep things simple for our animators, and we also wanted to maintain a minimalist approach in order to accentuate the characters’ loneliness, and so the audience could focus on the drama and not be distracted too much by the visual elements.
SS: In terms of the colours, we wanted to reflect the sorrow the characters’ experience, but I didn’t want to use dark or desaturated colours, it didn’t feel instinctive to me. So I chose colours that are bright, shiny and happy, and that contrast actually draws out the sense of hope we wanted to centre as well – you may be suffering, but there’s still hope for things to get better.
ML: What were some of the challenges you faced in making this film?
HM: One of our biggest issues was lack of funding. We live under sanctions in Iran and our national currency is worsening every day – it’s considered the second weakest currency in the world. We also struggled to find enough animators as so many people have left the country in recent years. Even accessing the internet here is hard, we have to use filtered internet via a VPN.
ML: Did you ever expect the film to be nominated for an Oscar?
SS: Well I’m not sure about an Oscar, but we spent eight years making this film, talking about it every day, putting so much effort in, so I expected the film to be successful. We were over the moon when we heard about the Oscar nomination. I think we’re just about back on the ground now!
HM: We made every frame of this film with love and we felt it was our mission to make it. I hope we’ve added some good to the world with this film.
