Filmmaker Omid Iranikhah says his short film “Farsi With Maman” is intensely personal — but not autobiographical.
The film, which just had its East Coast premiere at Dances With Films New York, follows a man named Pooya who is, like Iranikhah, Iranian-American. Otherwise, their lives differ significantly.
In the film, Pooya (a magnetic Hassan Nazari-Robati) grows up speaking Farsi but learns English from American TV. He wants people to call him “Peter.” He grows up and follows his new wife to her home state of Missouri, where he struggles with America suddenly “being weird” around 2017. (The film has a way with understatement.) He struggles as an adult to re-learn Farsi with help from his maman, or mother — but then things take a tragic turn.
Iranikhah, on the other hand, is an award-winning actor, writer and director who made “Farsi With Maman” as his intermediate project at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, one of the best film schools in the country.
Despite dealing with seriousness and tragedy, “Farsi With Maman” has wit abundant and irrepressible energy. It sails along. Iranikhah takes several big creative risks that pay off with some of the funniest and most moving scenes in the film.
Iranikhah told us about using humor to tell serious stories, having his lead actor play Pooya as both an adult and child, and how teaching is like filmmaking.
MovieMaker: First, as of this writing, you’re both working on your next film — in the Mojave desert — and watching the Iranian protests from afar. How are you feeling?
Omid Iranikhah on ‘Farsi With Maman’
Omid Iranikhah: I’m watching what’s happening in Iran with the same mix of heartbreak and confusion that a lot of people in the diaspora must be feeling right now. I’m aware of how privileged I am to be in the United States making a film. However, at the same time, I’m seeing our own country move in similar authoritarian directions. Oddly enough, the film I’m currently shooting comes directly out of that tension.
MovieMaker: “Farsi With Maman” is so beautiful — filled with pain, and yet so understated, and funny, and not at all morose. It’s impossible not to be charmed by it. How do you keep smiling, tonally? Did the understated, humorous approach take time to hone?
Omid Iranikhah: I tend to use humor to process difficult things so it felt natural to tell a personal, sometimes painful story like “Farsi with Maman” in a more humorous way. As long as the emotion of a given moment in the film felt honest to me, I knew it would work tonally for the overall piece.
MovieMaker: How autobiographical is “Farsi With Maman”? Did you move to Missouri, for example? And try to re-learn Farsi there?
Omid Iranikhah: I would say the film is more personal than autobiographical. I have never in my life stepped foot in the state of Missouri. … I never went around calling myself “Oliver” or anything like that. But what Pooya feels over the course of his journey was the personal part.
MovieMaker: I love the decision to have your main actor, Hassan Nazari-Robati, play Pooya as both an adult and child. It’s one of the ways you add levity to a sad situation — as you see other kids throw things at the child, there’s still a laugh in the fact that it’s an adult playing a child. How did you arrive at that decision?
Omid Iranikhah: The decision to have the wonderful Hassan Nazari-Robati play Pooya as a child as well as an adult just came from my own weird way of processing my memories. When I remember myself as a child, I’m only able to envision myself at the age I am now, but in the clothes of a child.
MovieMaker: I saw on The Black List that you have experience as a teacher — did that help you in making the film?
Omid Iranikhah: Yes, I do indeed have experience as a teacher. I’ve worked as a private essay tutor and as a substitute teacher for K-12 classrooms. Those jobs, more than anything else, taught me how to wrangle and manage a bunch of vastly different personalities and adapting to their needs in order to reach a goal.
You can read more of our Dances With Films New York coverage here.
Main image: Hassan Nazari-Robati in “Farsi With Maman.”
Editor’s Note: Corrects link.