SECOND BREATH zu Gast Regisseurin Mojgan Ilanlu

Synopsis

The documentary film "The Second Breath" (Nafas-e Dovom), directed by Mojgan Ilanlou, is a 53-minute documentary released in 2024, which took six years to make. ​The director has sought to create an investigative film focusing on the issue of violence against women in Iran. She demonstrates how the ruling class politicians in Iran not only deliberately ignore the issue of "violence against women" but also legitimize and justify it through religious discourse and by preventing the passage of fair laws. ​The filmmaker shows how the Iranian rulers themselves are the primary source of promoting violence against women. Women and girls are tortured, beheaded, burned, and murdered with absolute impunity and without any legal prosecution. ​The film reveals that although the rulers have resorted to the utmost severity to suppress women, Iranian women have fought back with full-scale resistance over the years—a resistance that ultimately culminated in the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement. ​Mojgan Ilanlou, the director of this documentary who is herself a women's rights activist and has been arrested and tried multiple times, joined the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement during the making of this film, removed her headscarf, and was subsequently imprisoned. She shares her own personal narrative regarding the issue of violence against women. ​Ultimately, in this film, she shows the audience what factors over many years led to the emergence of the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, and why women suddenly risked their lives to rise up against armed rulers.