The first production co-directed by Iranian and Israeli filmmakers had to be shot secretly to prevent possible interference by Tehran, directors Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Guy Nattiv told Reuters on Sunday. “Tatami,” a tense thriller centered on a world judo championship, got its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival at the weekend to a standing ovation. The film takes place over a single day of competition. An Iranian judoka champion, played by Farsi-speaking US actress Arienne Mandi, is ordered to fake an injury to avoid a match with an Israeli competitor. The pair filmed the movie in Georgia – a country open to Iran – avoiding local media and speaking only English to avoid suspicion.
Nattiv and Ebrahimi based the plot on an incident in which the International Judo Federation gave Iran a four-year ban for pressuring one of its fighters not to compete against an Israeli. “What I have learned about the Iranian government is that they can arrest you, kill you, they can make trouble around you,” said Ebrahimi, who won the Cannes best actress award for her role in Holy Spider and fled Iran in 2008.
The two directors also used various tactics to evade suspicion while shooting, including using a remote camera to shoot scenes where Shokri was not present and filming in locations that were not known to host international sporting events. The movie was not screened in Iran, and the makers are still determining whether it will ever be shown on Iranian screens.
Masihzadeh, who received a special jury prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for her work “At Night,” also went to great lengths to keep the project under wraps. To do so, she took on an extra job to help fund the movie and posed as an English teacher to study Iranians and their behavior in daily life. Her research included observing Iranian men and women at the airport, where she met the heir to an electronics firm.
She spotted a recurring theme in the conversations and situations they observed – that of ambiguity and doubt – which she has tried to emulate in the film. She also sought to reflect this in the script, which uses a tight 4:3 format for the cinematography and a soundtrack of Middle Eastern music. In addition, Sultan had to study Persian for months and train in Krav Maga – Israeli self-defense – for her role as Tamar Rabinyan. It was all designed to keep the Mossad agent’s identity a secret. As a result, some of the story is revealed in flashbacks during the credits. The film hit Israel earlier this year and premiered on Apple TV+. The director said he hoped it would be seen in the West as a way to show Iranians in a positive light and counter the impression they are only interested in money, power, and weapons.