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Nearly two years after the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement triggered in Iran by the death of Mahsa Amini, the actress and author of a show about her journey talks about the distance that separates her from her country since she left it in 2013 and evokes life before and after.
Eleven years have passed. Eleven years since my last trip to my country, Iran. Today, I am another woman and yet, I am the same. I am often asked: “Don’t you miss it?” And I still have trouble answering. I imagine that if you asked this question to someone who had lost a leg or an arm, they would have the same difficulty answering, because the question is so absurd. The lack is abnormal, so unnatural that you can no longer even know where to place this pain, among the other pains. Simply, you become abnormal, out of the norm, you don’t realize it but you try to stop time, not to see it pass, this time that is stolen from you. Because during this time, you miss things, people, and the fact of imagining it, it drives you crazy.
Your relationship with time, places and people changes. You are haunted by smells, colors, images, voices, by people from the past… and you can’t build your life, but you try to be strong, because you are strong. You left everything behind, for your passion, for your art, for your dreams. And you didn’t let yourself rot at their hands, let yourself die in despair. You knew how to say no. No! I don’t want to be the submissive woman you would like me to be! I don’t want to be a censored woman.
