Hosted by Orly Yadin
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars in 2008 and it ran right into the Pixar machine at the end of their imperial phase. Looking back, this striking and personal film, with its stark black-and-white, hand-drawn style and affecting intimacy, is a wonderful counterpoint to where popular animation was at that time. It remains a singular and indelible work and one of the best animated films of the century.
Adapted from Satrapi’s own autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis is a coming of age story set against the decades-long fallout of the Iranian Revolution. Told through the eyes of the outspoken Marjane, we follow her story from age nine to twenty-four. In the aftermath of fundamentalists seizing power in Iran, Marjane nurtures her identity and blossoming tastes under the hardline regime; she outsmarts the “social guardians” and embraces punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden while developing her artistic pursuits. Over the ensuing years, she navigates her complicated relationship with her homeland, leaving for school in Austria, returning and settling down with her family, and leaving again for new opportunities and freedoms in France.
With lasting geopolitical resonance beyond the ongoing wars in the Middle East, Persepolis is a remarkable feat of diaristic storytelling that is positively bursting with creativity.
Note: We are screening the English version of Persepolis, which was created with the oversight of author and director Marjane Satrapi and features Iggy Pop, Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn, and Catherine Deneuve.
The film is the first of a two-film series in animated histories presented by Orly Yadin, who wears several hats—award-winning filmmaker, film curator, educator. Before running VTIFF for 12 years, she taught documentary cinema, had her own production company that specialized in documentary animation, and also headed an archival footage company in London. She is now in production on a new documentary film.