‘The Siren’ Director Sepideh Farsi on Iran, Politics and Why She Wants Her Berlin Festival Film Pirated
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent When the Iran-Iraq war broke out in 1980, director Sepideh Farsi was a high school student in Iran.
At age 16, she was incarcerated for being an anti-Islamic Republic activist. Farsi stayed in her country until 1984 and then moved to France, where she experienced the second half of the conflict.
In her first animated feature, “The Siren” — which opens Berlin’s Panorama section — the Paris-based director revisits this war through the story of a 14-year-old boy named Omid, who decides to brave the Iraqi siege of Abadan, the capital of the Iranian oil industry.
After opting to stay in the city with his grandfather and a bunch of other diehards, Omid and the others take over an abandoned boat he finds in Abadan’s port, which becomes their ark.
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