Culture
Interview with Yadolah Dodge, Director and Founder of the Iranian Zurich Film Festival
Vivamost: Why did you feel the need to organize an Iranian film festival in Zurich?
Yadolah Dodge: When you decide to leave your place of birth, called country, you enter a new place with almost all different from what you have been growing with. Not just the language but all. Smell of the place, food, trees, land, air and specially how people live, their culture. Coming to this land as a university professor with a goal of producing better Human Being, you learn everyday how people are different, the way that they atke notes, how they prepare for exams, how their family are different and so on. Every day you have so many people are in front of you. If you want to live in this country, the best is to understand their culture and above this, get adopted to it and get involve.
Because this BRIDGE must be built, this cultural Bridge, the best would be the CINEMA, the 7th art.
Therefore, the idea of Film Festival was born once I moved to the beautiful city of Zurich.
By first making a movie TURICUM: Das ist Zurich, then the festival.
Vivamost: What are your goals with the festival?
Yadolah Dodge: The Iranian Film Festival of Zurich (IFFZ), is being organized to fill the cultural gap between Iranians and Swiss as well as the other nationalities living in Switzerland. Each year the festival presents the Swiss audience a selection of the best contemporary feature films, fictions and documentaries from all generations of Iranian filmmakers in Zurich.
The IFFZ defines itself as a platform for presenting the Iranian culture and tradition and for building a bridge between different cultures by the means of the universal language of art – and especially the 7th art, cinema.
Vivamost: Are you happy with the results so far? How many visited the festival last year?
Yadolah Dodge: Absolutely. The number more or less is the same but varies around 2000.
Vivamost: You must be so disappointed the festival won’t happen in the cinemas. Was it an easy decision to do it online?
Cypress under Water by Sarv e Zir e Aab – credit photo Iranian Zurich Film Festival
Yadolah Dodge: Not really. It is different. We must be adopting to a new situation, a new way of being, accepting this change. As I wrote in my welcome, : We must invest in CHANGE. This is a big change and we are trying to go along the time with its problems. That is what we did. We went ONLINE and give this as a gift to the residents of Switzerland. They gave us their gift by accepting us in return let us give.
Vivamost: Tell us how you select your juries?
Yadolah Dodge: You search and research. Ask people and observe. This year for example, you have an excellent filmmaker, a professor of film, a journalist, and two others movie lovers that not necessary into film industry. I think having all from the industry is not a good idea. We make films for public. Each year I do the same.
Vivamost: How many films did you watch to select 11? Is this a long process?
Yadolah Dodge: About 300 long, very much painful but there is no other way.
Vivamost: Why is the main focus on women this year?
Women must be the subject of all times. We are so much behind history. Because without them life has no meaning, yet we put them always under pressure, we put them down, we behave as they are plastic. Without them there will be no life on earth. Every year should be the year of Women. POINT.
Vivamost:Do you know any of the actors and directors personally very well?
Yadolah Dodge: Of course. I exposed to their planet when I was 17. I used to make decorations for theatres, then as a photographer. I made my first film when I was 18 and used to travel from my home town in the south Abadan to Tehran just to see a play. Today, I know more of them than before.
Vivamost: Can you name two films we shouldn’t miss and why?
Yadolah Dodge: None of them should be missed.
Vivamost: What are your dreams for the festival in the near future?
Yadolah Dodge: COMPLETE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE WITH ARTS. WE ARE ONE.
Vivamost: Thank you so much Yadolah and all the best for the festival starting tomorrow
Yadolah Dodge: I thank you for having me.
Register here to watch the films from May 28th to June 3rd
About Yadolah Dodge
Yadolah Dodge was born in Abadan, Iran, and is a Swiss citizen. Along with a full-time position as Professor and Chair of Statistics at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, he made three feature documentary films: Turicum: Das ist Zurich (2014), Dear Son (2018) and So ein Theater (2019).
