Iranian filmmakers Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani needed a miracle just to get to the 97th Academy Awards, let alone a second to win an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. They got both.
A last minute visa allowed them to travel to Los Angeles for the awards on March 2, with the pair arriving just three hours before the start of the ceremonies. Not too long afterward, their animated film "In the Shadow Of The Cypress" won.
“It’s a miracle, and speaking in front of this expectant audience is very hard for us,” Molayemi said in his acceptance speech at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
“Yes, if we persevere and remain faithful, miracles will happen.”
Inspired by the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, In the Shadow Of The Cypress is a 2D, dialogue-free animation that tells the story of a former ship captain suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who lives with his daughter in a far-flung house by the shores of the Persian Gulf in southern Iran.
Their lives take a turn when they discover a beached whale, setting them on a profound journey of healing.
The filmmakers initially wanted to portray challenging family relations, but then shifted their focus on the devastating conflict and its impact on the families of soldiers returning from war, Molayemi told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda days before the Academy Awards.
“We searched online for stories told by families of war veterans because we were sure the families wouldn’t talk to us, especially given all the bureaucracy and permits that we needed to obtain,” Sohani said.
Who Funded The Animation?
Molayemi said he and Sohani paid out of pocket to produce the film and later approached the state-run Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, a production company predating the Islamic republic, to recoup some of the costs.
The filmmakers agreed to give the company just over half of the rights to the film, but the company delayed payment by over a year, during which the value of the Iranian currency had significantly dropped against the dollar.
“The money was worth about half of what it was supposed to,” Molayemi complained.
The production company also demanded some scenes be dropped, including where the daughter shows her hair and the father smokes a cigarette, but the directors resisted.
"In The Shadow Of The Cypress" Makes History
In The Shadow Of The Cypress is the second Iranian film to be nominated in the Best Animated Short category, after Our Uniform by Yeganeh Moghaddam competed at last year’s Academy Awards. But Molayemi and Sohani’s film made history as the first Iranian animation to win.
Molayemi chalked it up to “coincidence” and said the back-to-back nominations “don’t mean animated movies get a lot of support” in Iran.
“These have all been personal efforts. Of course, animations that promote the government's ideology receive backing, but independent animations don’t get any special support."
There was little to no support from Iranian bodies to promote the film abroad as it competed in several high-profile competitions.
Sohani insisted that their movie met the criteria to be in contention for an Academy Award, “but at the Oscars, the quality of the film is not the only determining factor because promotion also pays an important part.”
She said while other movies in the category had the backing of large production companies, “in Iran, we simply didn’t have the financial resources to promote the movie at the level of the other nominees.”
Molayemi echoed his partner’s sentiment, calling In The Shadow Of The Cypress “the most abandoned movie” among the five nominees.
“I hope there is a miracle and they take notice of our movie,” he told Radio Farda, days before the movie made history at the Oscars.