by Debra Rich Gettleman

A standing ovation at the prestigious Venice International Film Festival, and the cat is out of the bag.

“Tatami,” is the story of female Iranian Judoka champion, Saeid Mollaei, who was ordered to throw a match at the World Judo Championships in 2019 to avoid facing Israeli Sagi Muki,

who ultimately won the tournament. Directly after the loss, Mollaei was secretly shuttled from Tokyo to Germany to protect her from the Iranian government who, not surprisingly, insisted that Mollaie’s claims were fabricated. The International Judo Federation banned Iran for all future competitions after investigating the claim. (The ban was later reduced to four years.)

The film, billed as a political sports thriller, is the first feature film to be co-directed by Israeli and Iranian directors. Both Guy Nattiv, Oscar winner and director of Golda, and Iranian Zar Amir Ebrahimi found their collaboration to be a perfect combination of authenticity and art. In a ScreenDaily interview, Nattiv shared, “Zar brought the Iranian authenticity. I don’t speak Farsi. She directed the actors in Farsi. She cast the movie as well. So, she brought a lot of layers. As a team, I was more in charge of the camera movements, and I directed her when she was acting and I was her eye. If she was in the scene, she came to the monitor to watch it with me. It was a beautiful process.”

Amir Ebrahimi, an award winning actress who also stars in the film, playing the Judoka’s terrified trainer, Maryam, told Reuters, “I knew there are many Iranians there, so we were trying to keep it calm and secret.” Nattiv concurred saying, “We knew it was a dangerous thing.”

“What I have learnt about the Iranian government,” insisted Ebrahimi, “Is that as long as you are afraid, they can arrest you, they can kill you, they can make trouble around you. But as long as you are not afraid … it is going to be fine.”

The film was shot in black and white, using a tight, 4:3 format, like for old television programs to illustrate the constraining limits placed upon Iranian women. “These women are living in a black and white world. There are no colours. The box is the claustrophobic world they live in. That is the one thing they want to break. They want their freedom,” Nattiv said.

The film seems destined for success as it addresses an incredibly relevant cultural divide between a free democracy, Israel, and a totalitarian Iranian regime. According to Variety, the film is “A potential breakout beyond the kinds of audiences who might ordinarily support a black-and-white, part-English, part-Farsi drama, “Tatami” could well engage beyond the usual arena for such films, and festival circuit glory seems assured.