NOTE: This article contains references to child abuse and sexual assault. It has been condensed and translated from the original Farsi.
Partners in life and filmmaking, Elaheh Esmaili and Hossein Behboudi Rad have garnered acclaim in the international film festival circuit in recent years for their searingly intimate and humanistic short documentaries about issues affecting ordinary people in Iran today. The Doll and Can I Hug You?, both directed by Esmaili and produced by Behaboudi Rad, screened at the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival in 2022 and 2024 respectively, the former winning our Best Documentary Short award that year. Aside from being heaped with many more awards and accolades, all three of their collaborations share something conspicuous in common. The Doll featured as its subjects members of Hossein’s own extended family, while Can I Hug You? put Hossein himself in the spotlight as he confronted childhood trauma. Their latest effort, A Move, depicts inter-generational conflict in Iran through the lens of Elaheh’s relationship with her family. All three films share a vulnerability rarely seen in the medium, which has evidently resonated with audiences around the world.
Last month, I spoke with them about their partnership, process, and more…
Hossein Behboudi Rad: The trophy that we received, when we won the (Best Documentary Short) award at your festival– we’ve won lots of awards but that was the first trophy we ever got.
Elaheh Esmaili: I’m looking at it right now. At that time, none of the festivals were sending us trophies, so yours was our first one, the first physical award. And we said, finally, we have something to prove we’re real filmmakers.
Arzhang Zafar: I didn’t know that!
HBR: It made your festival very special for us.
EE: Whenever my mom asks me what I’m doing, what being a filmmaker means, I just show her the trophy.
AZ: So… When did you start making films?
EE: In 2015 I was accepted into the University of Art in Tehran, where I got my Bachelor’s in film. My first film, The Doll, was actually my thesis film in this program. Afterwards I got my Master’s in directing, and I’ve been making films since.
AZ: How early did you know you wanted to be a filmmaker?
EE: There’s an institution in Iran called Kanoon, the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. It’s the only institution that’s specifically for kids and teenagers, for developing your artistic and “soft” skills. I started attending at eight years old, and I took part in all of the art classes they offered, to figure out what I was interested in. I started working in theatre there, and we would put on puppet shows, which I loved, but when I went to high school I focused on maths and engineering. Eventually I realized I hated engineering, and because I had already experienced something different at Kanoon, I knew what I wanted to do at university. So when I was twenty-one or twenty-two years old I decided to go to art school. When I was twenty-four I began studying film.
HBR: There was only one film school in Iran, and they would accept very few students. Elaheh needed to be within the top 50 applicants, and she studied so hard that she ended up getting the highest score. We were proud of her, but we didn’t know what she was going to do with a film degree.
AZ: And yourself?
HBR: In high school I was involved with theatre, and I enjoyed it. I had some interest and wanted to study art but I never thought very seriously about it, because I didn’t think my family would encourage me to pursue a career in the arts. Especially in a patriarchal society like Iran, it’s so hard if you do not have a “proper” job as a man. Then, when Elaheh began making films, I wanted to help. There wasn’t a lot of public funding available, so I thought I could help with that. Eventually it got to a point where I realized I was actually producing these films!
AZ: What made you interested in documentary filmmaking specifically?
HBR: I remember the first time I went to an international film festival, it was a documentary festival in Amsterdam. At the time I wasn’t particularly interested in documentaries, but Elaheh encouraged me to watch some films. I made sure to see all of the films that were from Iran and Afghanistan and Arab countries. I watched a film about Afghan children living in Iran. I grew up in Qom, and I went to school with kids from a lot of different backgrounds, including many from Afghanistan. There was a lot of prejudice toward these kids, and they were often bullied. When I saw this film, which was dealing with that very subject, I felt like it was speaking directly to me. It reminded me of so many experiences from my own life, and it struck me that it was possible to make a truly personal film in this way, to really intimately connect with an audience. When Elaheh was starting to develop her thesis film, we decided it should be a documentary focused on the child marriage of my cousin Asal.
EE: What matters to me is the story. If I’m looking to make a film, the form it takes will really depend on the story. Some stories suit a documentary, others suit a narrative. This is how I think about stories, and during the years I was in film school I tried to learn both skill sets as well as I could so that I would always have the option of telling a story either as a documentary or a narrative.
AZ: But the idea always comes first.
EE: Yes. From the moment the idea comes to me I’m thinking about whether I see it as a narrative or a documentary.
HBR: Something that documentaries have that set them apart from fiction films is that there are certain things that are so hard to believe that if you presented them as fiction, no one would ever buy it. They would not accept it if they knew it had been invented. But the documentary form allows people to accept truths that would be difficult or impossible to believe otherwise. For example, the child marriage we showed in The Doll took place in a major city. If that had been a fiction film, audiences might say it was unbelievable because child marriage only takes place in rural villages. People all have preexisting notions and biases, so these stories serve as counternarratives. And sometimes it’s not about belief, but in the case of something like child sexual abuse the subject matter could be too difficult to stomach in a narrative film, but audiences are more willing to see it in a documentary because the truth of it is undeniable. It didn’t come from someone’s imagination.
AZ: Are there any fiction films that you want to make?
EE: Yes, actually right now I am working on the script for a short film that I plan to make. In fact, my graduate program was entirely focused on narrative filmmaking. Now this one will be the first fiction film I have directed since then.
AZ: You two were already married when you entered film school. How did your creative partnership actually begin?
EE: As I mentioned, Hossein got involved initially to help secure funding. I knew that he would be persistent and motivated, and being a producer would suit him. If he has ambitions to achieve something, he will see it through. If you tell him to become a doctor, in five years he’ll be able to perform surgery on you.
HBR: It’s not like that!
EE: Yes, it is. Anyway, back then I told him that he would be good at this. I didn’t really know anything about the more administrative side of filmmaking. I didn’t know about festivals and distribution. So he did his research and learned about that world, production and distribution of short films and documentaries internationally. He was interested before, but that was when he became actively involved. Then with our next film, Can I Hug You?, we were a proper team. Hossein was totally in charge of producing and distributing. I think he really enjoyed it, and now he’s never going to let it go.
HBR: What helped us become creative partners, in my opinion, was that we were already life partners. We lived together. We had been married for six years when we made The Doll, and shared a lot of interests. I believe in any relationship between a director and producer, they both need to understand the project on the same level, and the subject matter needs to be important to both of them. Both of us were already thinking a lot about the subject of child marriage, because underage members of both of our families were getting married. We knew it was important to talk about this, and then it became obvious we needed to make a film about it. When we started talking about logistics, it became apparent we needed to work as a team. As for our next film, child sexual abuse was a topic we were both concerned about, particularly in my home city of Qom. I knew that Elaheh cared about this issue, but I had never told her about my own experiences with it. I had spoken about it in therapy, but not to Elaheh. But because we were already talking about it in the abstract, it became easier to talk about my own experiences. The third film was similar, only now we were dealing with Elaheh’s family instead of mine.
AZ: So many of your films have been about childhood, family, and dealing with personal and societal trauma. If you had to narrow it down, is there a particular subject matter or type of story that you are consistently drawn to?
EE: For me, it’s what I’ve experienced myself. The subjects that are most interesting to me are the ones I have the most personal experience with. For example, child marriage– I myself married very early, both of my sisters married as teenagers, both got divorced. So that was something really important to me as a subject matter. Being sexually assaulted as a child and being ignored by your parents, not receiving the support that you need from your parents, was also something that I had experienced. It was so important to me, and then it became reflected in Can I Hug You?. And in A Move, of course, I’m the central character and it’s about me and my family, exploring the toxic dynamics of different generations. They’re not necessarily all personal films, but they have some sort of strong connection to my own life.
AZ: What has stood out to me in your films is the focus on children specifically, and how childhood impacts adult concerns.
EE: To me, they’re all really about women’s issues and patriarchy, but like I said, because they all come from my experiences they are inherently related to childhood as well. For example, Can I Hug You? is literally about Hossein and his experiences, but I wanted to make a film like it before I knew about any of that. I was already planning on making a film about child sexual abuse in Qom. Why? Because I had those same experiences.So again, it would be most accurate to say that I am most interested in subjects that I can relate to. This has in some ways made my work easier–it’s more straightforward to tell stories about things you understand. In the future, I may try to cover topics that are a bit further from my own experience, things I haven’t dealt with or seen firsthand but that I could still do justice to. But until now, that’s been my approach.
HBR: I would say the same applies to me. Every film that we’ve made, truly, has been related to the things that were most important to me at that time. What you’re saying you see in our films, about how events in childhood carry over into adulthood, I think that in the process of developing the stories and trying to make them as deep and detailed as possible, that inherently leads to explorations of childhood, because it’s baked into the premise. I think even A Move, which is very much set in the present moment and explores our contemporary lives, still deals with childhood implicitly. For example, when Elaheh is speaking with her family about their conflicts, it automatically takes us back to childhood. The characters are speaking about childhood and how the idea of wearing hijab impacted them as children. This adds depth to the story. It’s a style of filmmaking that we value– if you’re trying to tell a layered story, that intention will likely lead you to the characters’ or subjects’ childhoods. I think this is present in all of Elaheh’s films, but at the same time, I don’t think we are going out of our way to tell stories which explore childhood. They’re stories that are important to us now, but because we want to explore them with depth, they take us there.
AZ: Out of all the films, Can I Hug You? is the only one that deals with your (Hossein’s) personal experiences. As you were not the director yourself, what was it like for you developing this project?
HBR: As we’ve said, Elaheh was exploring the subject long before it became about me, even before we made The Doll. Initially I didn’t think it would be constructive for the project for me to bring up my own experiences, but I was in therapy talking about my childhood, and eventually I opened up about the abuse I had gone through. My therapist insisted that if I wanted to repair my relationship with my family, I would need to open up to them about it, but we decided that I needed to talk to Elaheh first. That made me feel more comfortable, since I knew she already had some context, and since she was already planning to make a film about the topic, it would be easier for me to open up to her. One day I wrote about my experiences in the guise of a film treatment I was presenting to her. I sent it to her, but I didn’t tell her what it was, and that was how we initially talked about it. Then we both knew, if I was going to talk to my family about what had happened to me, we might as well turn it into a film, so other people could see it and feel encouraged to process and open up about their own abuse and trauma. As to Elaheh directing the film, of course she’s the one with experience and talent, but also, I felt like I needed someone else behind the camera who could protect both me and my family. If I was directing, I might have been too judgmental. I knew Elaheh cared deeply about me, of course, but also about my family, and so I knew I could trust her to tell this story properly.
AZ: Why do you feel it is important to have your films shown at international film festivals?
EE: Sharing with audiences is what it’s all about. The audience is who we make the films for, right? Unfortunately for us, Iranian filmmakers who are dealing with sensitive topics, it is difficult or often impossible to share our films freely and openly within our own country. International film festivals are an avenue through which we’re able to share our films with audiences. And the films we’ve made, even though they are very Iranian stories, they’re also universal. They resonate with international audiences. And for me, it’s really interesting to sit in these international screenings and see how audiences respond to my films, and to hear people’s thoughts and questions after the screenings. This creates an interesting exchange between us and our audience. And I always want to know, when the films are screened at festivals and other events, who is in the audience? What’s the demographic makeup? Who likes the film, who doesn’t, what are they taking away from it. Career-wise, it also helps me to become more established as a filmmaker and get funding for future projects. It allows me to turn my craft and my art into a career. I can start making features, for instance, or just work on more projects.
HBR: Everyone is looking for an audience. When you make a film, you’re putting a piece of yourself out there, and when that’s received by an audience it’s like they’re receiving you and accepting you. And that can be difficult when it’s not received positively. It feels like a rejection, not just of the film but of you personally.
EE: I don’t think it’s about being accepted or rejected, it’s more like finding community, or a sense of community. We’ve all experienced this thing together.
HBR: Exactly. We’re seeing the subject from the same perspective, in a sense. But it’s difficult, especially when you’re an emerging filmmaker coming from a country like Iran. Iran has an established cinema, of course, but it still only has one real film school that only accepts 10 people every year, and hardly any connections with international distribution due to sanctions. So how are you supposed to find an audience? And not just for us in Iran, but all filmmakers everywhere, festivals are the most important platform for audience-building. You build a reputation and a career through the audiences and connections found there. It’s where new talent emerges and gets discovered. From there you find distribution and additional platforms, but the festivals are where it all starts. I don’t think there exists another type of platform that connects new talent to the industry at that scale. These big streaming platforms and studios are trying to find new ways to discover talent, but they haven’t surpassed the festival circuit. And it’s always going to be difficult, if you’re a new artist, to establish yourself, but I think for filmmakers festivals are still the primary way to do it.
EE: It’s a key moment in every filmmaker’s career, when you’re accepted into a festival for the first time. You know that people are engaging with your work, and even if you don’t find distribution, with the feedback you receive you can develop your career further. It’s a major step in your development. Then maybe in the future you do get distribution deals, or end up on television or in museums, depending on the kind of work you’re doing. But what sets festivals apart is that your viewer is right there, and you can talk to them and ask them for their opinion and insight, or answer their questions. Many times, after a festival screening, I’ve initiated conversations with random people who watched the film. It’s important to hear from those audiences directly. You can learn a lot.
HBR: There are people who, after making a few short films, are able to secure funds for future projects with relative ease, and bypass the festival circuit to go straight to distribution. But then you lose that special experience, and that audience relationship. We’re not ready to let that go. We are going to stick with festivals for now, because we value that type of exposure, both to the filmgoing audience, but also the industry professionals who attend. If you’re going straight to distribution, you lose out on making a lot of those connections. The audiences help you find your community, and the industry professionals help you develop your career.
AZ: A significant portion of our audience is made up of emerging and aspiring filmmakers. Do you have any advice for them?
EE: First off, I want to make it clear that we are all always learning from each other and growing together. But if I’m asked to give specific advice, I would say just trust your gut. In order to fund our first film, Hossein and I used what savings we had and even sold our PlayStation 4. Our resources were very limited, but we had an idea that we were confident in, and we knew what we wanted the film to be. It was a fragile confidence, but it was enough to get us there. I knew that I was taking risks, but I was willing to take them because I believed in the project and the story. And I didn’t even know what we would do with The Doll after we made it, only that we had to see it through. In the process of making it, I learned so much, and through the challenges of a first production I grew as a filmmaker. So much of what made that film great were moments that we didn’t plan or expect, but came about naturally. I trusted my gut and knew those moments belonged in the film. The other key factor is learning from mistakes. With every new project, I am looking back at mistakes I made with previous projects, so that I can address them and make something even better. That way, little by little, I can grow and develop my craft.
HBR: Especially in the U.S., the role of producers and distributors and business partners is so important. When you’re an independent filmmaker, you need to know who you’re working with and what you want to gain from those relationships, whether it’s big studios or smaller funders. How are you going to really maintain your independence? If you want to continue making films, you are going to have to make some compromises. For now, like Elaheh said, I’m trying to keep moving forward without drowning. In the U.S., you can get seduced by the idea of working with big studios, of getting more and more money for your projects. I’m trying to look at it less as a business, and it’s difficult when your passion requires a lot of funding. How do you make a living and balance that with your creative drive?
EE: Next time, we can sell our PS5.
