Iranian film-maker and women's rights activist Mahnaz Mohammadi has survived multiple arrests, solitary confinement, and torture. In 2011, she was held for months in solitary confinement and tortured; in 2014, she was sentenced to five years and spent several months in prison. Despite this, she continues to defy the regime through her work. 'I'm a soldier. I don't have a gun, but I have a pen and a camera,' she says.
Meeting one of her first interrogators years later, he told her: 'He told his colleagues that after doing all those things, if I were going back behind the camera, it meant they couldn't do anything with me.' Mohammadi reflects: 'He's right! Nobody can hurt me.'
Still, she constantly looks over her shoulder. After leaving Iran to finish her latest film, she stays in Europe on a three-year visa. When a journalist disclosed her city of residence, she felt forced to consider moving. 'I'm not afraid of dying but I don't feel safe. It's not a good feeling,' she says.
Drawing from personal trauma
Mohammadi's new fictional drama Roya draws on her own and others' lived experiences of prison. The film follows a university professor accused of inciting students to burn headscarves. Like Mohammadi in 2011, Roya is held for months in solitary confinement in Evin prison and tortured. The film is harrowing but not graphic; Mohammadi says: 'I censored a lot.'
The film opens with Roya reading graffiti on prison cell walls, a detail from Mohammadi's own experience. She explains: 'It helped me get through isolation. Then one day, I stole a pen from my interrogator and I started writing for the next woman – “I was here. Now I'm not. You will not stay forever. I'm gone. You will be gone. Don't worry.”' After her release, a woman imprisoned in the same cell approached her and said: 'Mahnaz, you saved my life!'
Prison shattered her identity. 'The Mahnaz who went to prison was a different person. When I came out, my identity was shattered,' she says. During one interrogation, she was told her father had died. He had been arrested and told she had died. 'They tortured both of us at the same time,' she whispers, eyes filling with tears. 'I felt so guilty. I was thinking I should kill myself.'
Defying restrictions
Banned from making films since her 2019 feature debut Son-Mother, Mohammadi defied the regime to shoot Roya exterior scenes in Iran without official permission. She prefers not to discuss how, fearing for colleagues. Prison scenes were shot in Tbilisi, Georgia. She says: 'I never think about limitations. As a woman, since you are born, they put the scarf on your hair. And they don't put just a scarf on our heads. They put limitations on our way of thinking.'
Mohammadi is not alone in risking everything. Earlier this month, Tehran's revolutionary court upheld a one-year prison sentence for Oscar-nominee Jafar Panahi. Mohammad Rasoulof escaped to Germany in 2024 after being sentenced to eight years and flogging.
Does making such a personal film feel exposing? 'You feel naked,' she says. 'But there are so many people inside Iran still in prison. Until the last one is there, I will do whatever I can. I can't do big things. But I can do small things, like make films.'
Early life and activism
Mohammadi grew up in a cultured, middle-class home. Both sides of her family are teachers and university professors; an uncle is a poet. Her father, a businessman, played a huge role. When she was released from prison for the first time, he welcomed her home: 'Amazing Mahnaz. Now you're really my daughter.' She says: 'If I'm surviving, it's because I was privileged to have such a dad.'
At 15, she won a story competition on children's radio and worked for four years writing for the show. The job gave her confidence; at 18, she moved out to live alone in Tehran, shocking everyone. She studied psychology at university, then worked at a film company. Her debut documentary, Women Without Shadows (2003), was about a women's homeless shelter.
Now, after everything, she plans to return to Iran. 'I'm not a refugee in Europe. My visa is for three years.' She could seek asylum but says: 'I'm not just a film-maker. For so many years, I have been fighting for women's rights.'
Is she hopeful the regime will be toppled? She nods. 'A few days ago I heard from one of my students. She said: “Don't worry Mahnaz. We are gaining power for the last attack on them. Now is our time. We will do it.” The new generation has such a big will to get rid of them. It will definitely happen. The Islamic republic is finished.'
