Previous/Next sections
Introduction
Memory I : Fragmented identities
1.1 Presenting the unimaginable
1.3 What kind of immigrant filmmaker can I be?
Memory II Essentialism in diaspora
2.1 What part of me is intresting for you?
2.3 Memories of memories of memories
Memory III : The Swedish project
3.2 Re-thinking Us and the Others
Results
In the previous section I introduced the experience of being rejected on the basis of a film idea being perceived as incomprehensible to the Swedish institutions in charge for funding. The roles and the story did not fit a pre-destined box for diasporic or immigrant films. So what are these expectations?
Looking back, there is a self-image in Sweden, that the country has been homogenous for a long time, and that ethnic/racial/cultural diversity is a new phenomenon (Lundström & Hübinette 2020). Nevertheless, documented policy toward what was defined as racial minorities goes back to the beginning of the previous decade, including forced sterilizations and compulsory care of children (Runcis 1998).
Before the Second World War, Swedish actress Greta Garbo broke through in Hollywood and paved the way for the following generation of filmworkers, among which Ingmar Bergman is perhaps still the most famous (Andersson & Sundholm 2019). Meanwhile, an almost unknown genre of film was produced in Sweden by immigrants, people who had escaped the Nazis, guest workers and refugees from non-European countries (ibid). In the 70’s refugees from Latin America produced movies in Sweden (Sergio Castilla, A Chilean Girl in Sweden produced for SVT). In their overview of immigrant filmmaking in Sweden, Andersson and Sundholm describe the independent production Hägring/Mirage (1984) by Iranian filmmaker Saeed Assadi. It tells of an Iranian refugee unhappy with life in Sweden. The film was made without institutional funding. The critics wrote that it gave a negative image of the Swedish Welfare State. The review below is quoted in the book, as written by an anonymous critic in Svenska Dagbladet:
"[The film] is essentially a one-man work and possibly also a film that emerged from bitter experiences of the self- conscious artist's difficulties in being recognized and, therefore, without self-criticism, is attacking the society that contributes to his financial support. In the 1960s, such a situation used to be explained by the repressive tolerance of society, but Assadi never seems to have reached such an analysis. Instead, his protagonist despises all Swedish people who do not consider themselves victims of an international imperialist and capitalist conspiracy. Because they do not realize the situation, they become drug addicts, alcoholics, suicides or prostitutes. Had a Swedish in Tehran made a film with a similar analysis, he would have been accused of racism, but the Swedish world conscience can only agree." (30 April 1984)
In the above quote, a frustration over the outsiders perspective on “our” society is expressed. The book further describes the film Consuelo (1988), another one of the first “immigrant movies” produced in Sweden. The plot is centered around Manuel, a refugee from Chile, and his attempts to to create a sense of home and belonging in Stockholm with a Swedish girlfriend. One day he hears the news that political refugees are granted asylum in Chile, and he contemplates to return. It turns out he has left his fiancé behind. The moral of the story is that Chile has also changed and Manuel is home neither here nor there. The film received funding from several institutions, among others the Swedish Film Institute (Andersson & Sundholm 2019). The critics wrote that this movie gave a superficial image of Swedish society.
In the 1970’s and 80’s, different platforms were created for independent immigrant filmmakers; Cineco, Kaleidoskop and Tensta Film Association to mention some. According to Andersson and Sundholm this was due to a sensed necessity to articulate the lived experiences of migrants and that existing institutions did not fully understand the experiences of immigrant cinema (ibid).
In the 1990’s and early 200’s a wave of “immigrant movies” were produced, with Jalla Jalla (Josef Fares) perhaps being the most famous one. While the immigrant movies of the previous generation depicted the first generation refugee migrants and challenges in establishing a new sense of home in the new host country, these new movies had a common central theme in depicting a generational conflict between the first and the second generation of immigrants. In Jalla Jalla, the protagonist Roro is a young man of lebanese origin, who is dating a Swedish girl without the knowledge of his family. The drama intensifies when he parents present him a bride in an arranged marriage. The Swedish Film Institute provides a guide for teachers who want to use this film in educational purpose:
Jalla! Jalla! touches on differences between the conditions for men and women in Arab and Swedish culture. And the perspective is mainly Roro's and Mån's, i.e. male. Admittedly, both guys' girlfriends are Jenny and Lisa, independent young women who are not afraid to make demands and get their own ways, but Yasmin seems prepared to accept the life that the men have chosen for her (Ludvigsson 2001).
The project to portray cultural differences and cultural clashes was also dominant in the film Vingar av glas/Wings of Glass (2000). Here, the main character is Nazli, a teenage girl born in Iran, who has lived most of her life in Sweden. While her father wants to arrange a marriage for her, she wants to become “Swedish”. This is articulated by changing her name to Sara, driving a motorcycle and having a Swedish boyfriend. The diplomatic boyfriend meddles for peace between her and the father, which leads to a happy ending. Also this film comes with a teachers guide to discuss cultural differences and difficulties for immigrants to adjust to the new society (Lagerström 2000).
In 2002, the film Hus i helvete/House in Hell by Susan Taslimi offered a new twist to the culture clash discourse, in a plot where Minou returned home after some time abroad, only to meet the rage of her parents over her carrier as a stripper. Themes of chastity, honor culture, brothers controlling their sisters and stereotypical gender roles are sprinkled over the family as the argue loudly in a crowded apartment in an immigrant suburb. The role as Nazli in Wings of Glass as well as the roll as Minou in House in hell, are casted to Swedish female actresses, which connects to a tradition of white actors playing rolls depicting person’s of color (Simons 2016).
In the field of documentary, several Swedish productions portrayed Iran in the 2000’s. The most famous, or at least most productive Swedish-Iranian documentary film maker is perhaps Nahid Person Sarvestani, with 17 movies made between 1994 and 2021. She became known to a broader audience through the documentary Prostitution bakom slöjan/Prostitution behind the veil (2004), about short-time marriages as a legal loophole for prostitution in Iran. In Fyra fruar och en man/Four wives and a man (2007) she follows a man with four wives and 20 children in Iran. In 2009 she made the film Drottningen och jag/the Queen and I, where she interviews Farah Pahlavi, the former Queen of Iran. Persson Sarvestani has also made two documentaries about exiled political dissidents from Iran; Min stulna revolution/My Stolen Revolution (2013) and Hör min röst - slöjans revolution/ Hear my Voice - My Stealthy Freedom (2021). As stated when she received a culture scholarship, most of her movies are rooted in her own life story (Per Garneviks Stiftelse för kulturella ändamål 2019)). The at times over-simplified depictions of Iran as a underdeveloped place, Iranian men as perpetrators, can be understood within the conditioned context of production in which she as an Iranian female filmmaker, is expected to reproduce such clichés.
Another one of the more well-established Swedish-Iranian documentary makers is Nima Sarvestani, who, as the name tells, is the brother of Nahid Persson Sarvestani. Among his more famous films are Rea på njure/Kidney for sale (2006) and Frihet bakom galler/No burquas behind bar (2012) and De som sa nej/Those who said no (2014). For No burquas behind bar he received and International Emmy Award. Although the theme for Nima Sarvestanis movies, is to depict the misery, misogyny and testimonies of political refugees in exile - unlike his sister, he does not center himself in the plot.
Having gone through archives and read about Swedish immigrant cinema, I can’t help but wonder what my future in this field will be. My interest until now has been stories to which I can relate. In this sense, perhaps I have something in common with the Sarvestani’s, but the stories that catch my interest are not necessarily the most vulnerable characters, child wifes, victims of domestic violence or refugee trauma. I want to make a documentary about the rock scene that evolved from underneath the censorship of my teenage years. I want to tell the stories of engineers that became café owners, who emigrated and became students at the age of 40. I want to follow the Iranian environmentalists and their quest for the survival of the Asian Cheetas. Every day, I have new ideas of stories I would want to work on. But just like the Chilean and Turkish immigrants before me, I doubt that the institutions or the field in general, shares my visions.
Perhaps I’m overtly cynical. There are also film productions from the millenium wave of immigrant movies, which break the pattern of stereotypical stories - at least partly. Före stormen/Before the tempest (2000) by Reza Parsa depicts parallel stories of a refugee blackmailed by the militia to which he previously was affiliated, and a young teenager who is bullied. In a complex web of events, the two become interdependent of eachother. The theme of the movie is moral dilemmas and pushing the limit for what one can do without loosing oneself - rather than the one dimensional story of an immigrant with difficultiest to adjust to the new country. The film has a political undertone, touching on issues such as export of military arms and the corruption of both the welfare institutions in Sweden and the militia in Iran. The teachers guide for this film brings up these questions rather than the discourse on clash of cultures (Lagerström 2000 B). The tone in immigrant movie production in Sweden changed in the 2010’s, with more emphasis on contrasting underpriviliged suburbs with inner city/traditionally Swedish subjects (Eriksson 2019). What is perhaps different now, compared with the 1970’s and 80’s, is that informal and independent structures such as Cineco, Kaleidoskop and Tensta Film no longer fill the void for immigrant filmmakers. I can only suppose the division between immigrants and the children of immigrants, so called second generation immigrants or mixed identities, is not as distinct as then. With many more persons of color in the field, the need to distinguish between immigrants and Swedes is (hopefully) less dominant. One aspect of this lack of space is that persons with different social, cultural and economical capital compete over the same positions and resources, perhaps on not so equal terms (Bourdieu 1986). Another aspect is that the inclusion of persons of color is conditioned by their role as cultural others. Asides from the problematic dimension racism and colonial mindset in this process of of othering, it also encourages a self-exotification; to brand oneself as the cultural expert in order to at least be included in some arenas. This also fosters a culture of competition rather than cooperation among migrants, because there are only so many spots for the role as experts and so much demand for films about the miserable conditions in our countries.
An anecdote that comes to my mind is a conversation I had with one of my lecturers at the Stockholm University of the Arts. She was interested in the Iranian theater scene and I told her of my experiences and contacts. She told me of one of her previous students, also of Iranian origin. When the lecturer had suggested to the student to invite a team of actors from Iran to co-produce, the student had replied: they are all agents of the regime. This event raises the question posed by Spivak more than 30 years ago - can the subaltern speak, and can they be heard? Spivak wrote about the conflict of interest that is inherent in any situation where a more priviliged group tends to represent a more marginalized group (Spivak 1988). While immigrant filmmakers in the 80’s struggled to be accepted in relation to the Swedish institutions, the anecdote with my teacher implies the contested reality of diaspora art production, where claims about authenticity and who is the legitimate representation of the community, create division and further marginalization.
I arrived to Sweden at the age of 25 as an international student, and I am very familiar with the prejudice that the international students are government spies. I never felt comfortable arguing for my non-spyness, by dragging up my parents political background or that I used to visit my grandfather in prison while I was in middle school. Because I did not participate in certain political protests or because I continuously traveled to Iran, I heard rumors behind my back, sometimes more explicit comments. I didn’t care much, because I didn’t categorize myself in the box of “Iranian diaspora”. However, definitions belong to the definers, not the defined, to paraphrase Tony Morrison. I obtained my masters in film and media production from Lunds University in 2012 and started working in a production company as an assistant, then TV, then radio. Although I had documented experience from culture and media in Iran, from our death metal band, which I will return to, to columns in a satirical magazine that was later closed down - although I read in Persian and was regularly there, I was never invited to panels or events in the role of “expert”.
This year something changed. I’m not sure if the expert role ran such a high inflation that suddenly anyone who identified as Iranian could perform it - or if something happened in my relation to the culture sphere in Sweden, perhaps due to my enrollment at the Stockholm University of the Arts. Anyway, I am now ascribed an identity as expert and invited to panels or workshops addressing Iranian cinema or music. I find this position complicated and uncomfortable and it makes me uneasy. I just want to be a filmmaker, not a cultural expert. Off course I could say no and go back to unpaid assistant work. At the same time, often in these panels, I find myself being the only person who has actually lived in Iran. I don’t make claims to authenticity, but that is the core of the problem. I know that Iran consists of 80 million individuals with extremely different experiences, that no such thing as a general Iranian culture exists. Sometimes, I’m the only one who points this out, and if for no other reason, I see that as a legitimate motive for my presence. Consequently, with a more fluid definition of who is and insider and outsider, the position as “the immigrant filmmaker” or the “cultural expert” can be an arena for contestation and/or competition. The role can be commercialized and commodified in ways that serve individual careers, similar to ways in which “gender experts” have become a profession which is not necessarily in line with feminism and gender theory (Künz & Prügl 2019). To whom is the role as an expert accessible, t0 whom not, and on what grounds?
Performativity is a useful concept to understand how migration is not simply a physical movement of people from one place to another, but also a social and cultural process that is shaped by language, discourse, and other forms of communication (Butler 1990). In the context of migration, performativity refers to the ways in which language and communication create and reinforce social identities and hierarchies among migrants and non-migrants. For example, the use of certain terms and discourses by media or politicians can construct migrants as a threat to the receiving society, or as an underclass that needs to be assimilated or excluded. Similarly, migrants themselves may use language and communication to construct their own identities as belonging to a particular community or group, or to challenge dominant narratives about migration and its effects. Performativity also has implications for the experience of migration itself. For example, the use of certain language and communication practices can shape how migrants are received and treated in the receiving society, or how they navigate their own social and cultural integration in the new context. Migrants may also use language and communication to negotiate their own identities and sense of belonging in a new place, or to resist marginalization and discrimination. I would argue that taking on a role as “expert”, can be a way to negotiate over space and belonging in the new society.
Antropologist Shahram Khosravi discusses a tangible issue in his article about divisions within the Iranian diaspora in Sweden, where those who arrived as refugees in the 80’s doubt the newer migrants, and the newer migrants, who often came as students or skilled labour, look down on the refugees (Khosravi 2018). At least to my experience, the further away from whatever is perceived as Swedishness you are categorized, the more limited the margin for manoeuvre. That is to say, the student with whom my lecturer had spoken, obtains a function as not only an expert, but also a gatekeeper in relation to other, newer immigrants. She can reproduce a narrative in which people like myself are excluded from the culture scene in Sweden. Ironically this exclusion is motivated through humanitarianism. The expert immigrant filmmaker can in such situations position him- or herself more or less in contrast with other immigrant filmmakers, as a performance of identification. In this case, the student positioned herself within the scope of Nordic Exceptionalism, Sweden and Swedishness as the humanitarian super power and the Iranian actors as inevitably entangled with the regime. The problem with immigrant filmmakers having to engage in acts of performative assimilation and/or self-stereotypization remains, regardless if it’s her, me or a group of visiting actors from Iran that are involved. This othering is inherently embedded in the position as “immigrant filmmaker”.
In their overview of immigrant filmmaking in Sweden, Andersson and Sundholm describe the independent production Hägring/Mirage (1984) by Iranian filmmaker Saeed Assadi. It tells of an Iranian refugee unhappy with life in Sweden. The film was made without institutional funding. The critics wrote that it gave a negative image of the Swedish Welfare State. The review below is quoted in the book, as written by an anonymous critic in Svenska Dagbladet:
