‘Seven Winters in Tehran’ follows a young woman sentenced to death for defending herself against a rapist in Iran.
People are regularly confronted by news coverage of and social media campaigns opposing various and specific human rights violations. While countries are expected to have their own laws and traditions, it’s difficult to accept when those rules are designed to disenfranchise and unfairly punish a certain group. In particular, middle-Eastern cultures tend to favour men over women, leading the latter to face harsh punishments for seemingly harmless or reasonable behaviour. In the latest documentary to shed light on an instance of discrimination and injustice, Seven Winters in Tehran follows the case of a young woman who killed her would-be rapist.
In the summer of 2007, Reyhaneh Jabbari was approached by a man who overheard her discussing a design project. Offering her an opportunity to design his new clinic, he invites her to view the space. Unfortunately, this is just a ploy to get the 19-year-old alone to rape her. Jabbari manages to defend herself by stabbing him and escaping. After his death and her arrest, it’s eventually revealed the man was a former agent of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. Jabbari is inevitably convicted of his murder and sentenced to death by “blood revenge.” Over the course of seven years, Jabbari is tortured, called a liar, forced to provide a false confession supporting premeditated murder, and told to seek a pardon by retracting her testimony and apologizing to the victim’s family.
It’s important to note this documentary only exists because filmmakers smuggled the footage out of Iran, determined to share Jabbari’s narrative with the world. It’s difficult to listen to her story as she’s repeatedly treated unjustly and the physical threat to her well-being is deliberately dismissed, going as far as to blame her for the attack. Most trying are the suggestions that it would have been better if she’d allowed the rape to occur and the confessions of other young women that they likely would surrender to a rapist now after seeing the consequences of Jabbari protecting herself.
Jabbari’s words are shared via audio recordings and letters in which she speaks very intelligently and candidly about her situation. Her parents, two sisters and lawyer fill in the blanks, describing the complications and distress they experienced as they fought for Jabbari’s freedom, first within the legal system and then through the victim’s family as they begged for forgiveness on her behalf. It’s a harrowing tale for all involved as everything appears to be setup to make her release next to impossible. Overall, this is a compelling true crime narrative that unfolded nearly 10,000 km away, using the facts of the case to call attention to the disparaging state of the country’s women’s rights.
Seven Winters in Tehran had its North American premiere in the Persister programme at the Hot Docs Festival.
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Director: Steffi Niederzoll
