Sadaf Baghbani tells Iranian women to the theater

THEThe day they shot them, the day he saw the blood, his and others on the road, The day he thought he was dead and instead the voices around they told her nohe will remain impressed forever in the memory and in the meat where many of the one hundred and fifty lead dots that hit him are set. While telling it, Sadaf Baghbani cannot hold back tears.

It is not the memory of fear, but of a different emotion, the lossing bond with angern, with his people, with his family, with the girls who refuse the veil, ask for freedom and die for this. Sadaf Baghbani is thirty years old, a musical voice, a slender figure, diaphanous skin, more Renaissance than Persian, black, short, wavy and shiny hair, deep, extraordinarily expressive eyes. Right, the actress is, and has a beautiful smile at Julia Roberts, enhanced by the strawberry colored lipstick.

It could be any of our girls, with the red t-shirt and the word California (a desire?), Instead He is a woman looking for roots, in Italy or elsewhere because in Iran he cannot return. In Milan, at the Franco Parenti Theater he brought My three sisters, Inspired by Chekhov, recited in Persian and Italian, but sewn on her by the director Ashkan Khatibi, he too Expat: “The history of my life is ninety percent”. Will tell it to “Sowing ideas. Festival city of Prato” (6-8 June), who in this first edition has chosen courage as the theme. She had that of disobedience. He challenged the Islamic Republic, the theocratic state, with small gestures, such as making parties and listening to forbidden music. He showed the geography of his wounded body in a shocking photo.

But how did all this begin?
When Mahsa Amini killed on September 16, 2022, arrested because he did not bring the veil correctly, something was triggered in me. I studied acting and I went to the auditions with the veil, I respected the very close rules of the censorship. But after Mahsa Amini I didn’t do it anymore. The anger has grown, not only mine. Since then I have not brought hijab, I have never even put an emergency in the bag or backpack, if I met the police. I recited in underground shows, in the garages, in the basements, in the parking lots, in the improvised spaces, with very little audience, and targeted invitations because it could be dangerous. It was my way of reacting as an artist. But it was not enough. And I took to the streets. Two months after the death of Mahsa Amini and forty days after that of Hadis Najafi, twenty years old, hit by six bullets during the protests in Karaj, near Tehran, everything has changed for me. There is a precise date, November 4, 2022. I participated in an event. Many have occupied the road leading to the cemetery where Hadis’s tomb is located.

What do you remember of that day? Fear? Anger?
Here, I have a beautiful memory of that revolution. Beauty was in what I felt and saw, strangers who met, united, smiled and embraced each other, worried about each other, worried about the risk, but determined to be there despite everything. I had never seen such a thing. People are better than those who govern it … we felt strong, we were not afraid. We shouted: “Death to the dictator”. Then they began to shoot us on them. It was chaos. I am one of the many people affected by bullets and now I try to be their voice also with the shows, with the interviews. There are not only the wounds, there is also the deep trauma. Try to imagine one who points the gun against you! Still, I am happy to have lived that experience because it made me more courageous.

Then what happened?
They struck me, I fell, I saw the blood on the face, on my hands. I thought I was dead, but I realized I was alive because I felt the voices of others. At that moment, I absurdly wondered: if we had to die for freedom, freedom will come, sooner or later, or not? A man took me away from there and I was able to call my parents. No hospital, private clinic. And they began to extract the dots: I was everywhere. I fled from Iran, they helped me to arrive in Italy, in Milan, and I understood that I lost everything, my life, my family, my mother, my sisters. I find them in the theater show (I owe a lot to Ashkan Khatibi who wrote it) and I remember when in the evening, the lights turned off, we confided our dreams. I fall asleep imagining that I am in Iran and in the morning I wake up again feeling a migrant again, one without homeland.

Are the dots still there?
Yes, still many. I am a reminder. I feel them under the skin. They weigh me. But continuing with operations is a very difficult choice. Going under the irons still and is still becoming a sign of weakness for me. I try to be strong, to accept this new condition. The memory of November 4, 2020 returns every time. I can’t watch a movie where there are wounds and blood, even a small cut on one hand. But even if I try a great pain, I want to continue reciting, to give testimony, to bring My three sisters In Italian theaters while I try to build a new life. The biggest risk is to be forgotten. Names that fade.

What does freedom mean for you? Go out alone? Without the veil?
In Iran I hadn’t brought the veil for two years. Here in Italy I go to the gym, I dress as I want, I can smoke a cigarette, drink a beer. I was already doing all this, but for 46 years the Islamic Republic has inculcated us the idea that if you smoke or drink a beer you are a little good, you are not a respectable girl. A woman cannot sing, laugh on the street, kiss. It may seem strange, but when I think of freedom, I think above all one thing: I see the police and I no longer feel threatened, I feel that in the new society where I live there is respect, without the gaze of the judgment. They accept me how they are. I did not leave Iran for small freedoms, cigarettes, beer, but for something more important. Unfortunately, the situation had become unbearable. Between 2022 and 2023 the regime killed hundreds of people and put more than twenty thousand in prison. If you protest, they find a way to punish you.

Are you still in contact with the family?
When I can. I am grateful to everyone because they support me in this path even if everything I say or do could endanger them, could cause retaliation to them.

He said that thus pierced by lead dots he thought he could no longer be loved. Do you still think so?
It is very difficult for me to think about love. I had to leave all my loves, my father, my mother, my family, my home. I am afraid of love especially because I am afraid of losing it as I have lost everything that has remained in Iran. But, I don’t know where, I don’t know how, I don’t know when, I hope that love will come and fill my life again.

I woman © RESERVED REPRODUCTION