Silent House
October 22, 2023
Maria
October 25, 2023
DreamsGate

Iran, France, Norway/ 2023/ 64 min

SYNOPSIS

DREAMS’ GATE is an observational documentary where Iranian female director Negin Ahmadi starts a personal journey into the combat zone of North Syria to question what it means to be a woman. Alone with her camera, she decides to look for an answer for her questions by encountering the women who embody the strongest contemporary myth of female strength and freedom: Kurdish female fighters. The personal search and internal struggles turn into an intimate women diary written in the first person. Following, sharing, witnessing the life of this other Kurdish women put into question the image that the director has of herself and of the cost of equality and freedom in this difficult region.

Trailer

Pictures

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

I come from a patriarchal society, and after my divorce, I found myself in a complicated situation and looking for a meaning in life. This is how I started being interested in the lives of the Kurdish women in Syria. I wanted to see how these girls could stand out for themselves while they are like me living in a patriarchal society.

How important and vital can their goals be that they have preferred to fight rather than stay at home and act in the roles that society gave them? How could they step over the limited borders that had been defined for women? All these questions gave me the motivation to leave Iran and delve into the Gatelives of those Kurdish women who have a few years ago started a revolution. Those women believe that by supporting each other, they can create a unit that will step up for the rights of all women in the world. I asked them, if there was a war in another country, would you go? “Yes! Because we want to liberate women from all patriarchal ideologies and countries. We are fighting for all women.”

CREW:

  • Director: Negin Ahmadi
  • Producer: Elaheh Nobakht
  • Screen Play: Negin Ahmadi, Farzaneh Fathi
  • Cinematography: Negin Ahmadi 
  • Edit: Loghman Sokhanvar 
  • Music: Hossein Mirzagholi 
  • Sound: Behnia Yousefi
  • Sound Designer: Bahman Ardalan
  • Production Manager: Taim Hussein
  • Coproduction: France – Ava Studios -Hamidreza Tabarraei Norway: Spætt Film AS - Håvard Wettland Gossé
 

Director’s Biography:

Born in 1989 in Iran, Negin Ahmadi is a Kurdish Iranian filmmaker. Ahmadi studied Economics, and finished her Associate’s degree in the university of Imam Khomeini in Qazvin. She is currently a student in Iranian Youth Cinema Society. As a director, she has supervised some documentary series and directed a short documentary named “A FEW DAYS OF SHIRIN” in 2016. Dreams’ Gate will be her first feature documentary.

Producer’s Biography

Elaheh Nobakht is one of the pioneer women in Iranian Cinema.

She has produced six feature films and two short films, such as producer of “The Apple Day”, selected in 72th Berlin International Film Festival, Producer of feature documentary “ Silent House “ selected in the international competition section of IDFA 2022, Co-producer of "Holy Bread" selected in IDFA mid-length competition 2020, Hot docs 2021. Zagreb dox 2021, "Beloved", selected in IDFA, Berlinale 2019,  HotDocs 2019 and more than 65 International film festivals.