Scheherazade reimagined: An interview with “1001 Frames” Director Mehrnoush Alia
Image Description: Director Merhnoush Alia smiles on the left. On the right is a film poster for “1001 Frames,” which contains an image of a chair next to an open red backpack.
Image text reads: “1001 Frames,” followed by “A film by Mehrnoush Alia.”
Mehrnoush Alia is an Iranian-American filmmaker who has worked on a number of short films and documentaries. She is the co-founder of Maaa Art, a film and television production company based in New York and Tehran. Her feature film debut, “1001 Frames” had its U.S. premiere at AFI Fest in October of this year.
Written and directed by Alia, “1001 Frames” is a fresh yet timeless take on the classic tale of “One Thousand and One Nights” in the wake of #MeToo and the Woman Life Freedom movement. Exploring the ever-present nightmares of the casting couch, “1001 Frames” is a psychological thriller and found-footage piece shot entirely from the perspective of the audition camera. The film follows a fictional male director as he screen-tests a number of women for the role of Scheherazade in his next project. Shot underground and set in Iran, “1001 Frames” stitches together a series of increasingly disturbing audition tapes that blur the lines between storytelling and exploitation, artistry and power. Claustrophobic in their accuracy, yet liberating in their criticisms, these fictional tapes coalesce into a beautiful film that speaks directly to the dangers of performance as survival in highly gendered spaces.
FEM is incredibly grateful to have sat down with director Mehrnoush Alia to discuss her work following the U.S. premiere of “1001 Frames.”
Can you tell me a little bit about “1001 Frames”? Who is this film for? What do you want audience members to take away from it?
I think it has a broad audience … But, you know, the interesting part has been that men really appreciate it. A lot of them have told me that it made them question moments in their lives … Obviously, none of the ones who came [there] were like, you know, abusers to that [extent]. But [the film] made them think that … the smaller things that they might have done might have made the woman uncomfortable.
Also, I wanted women to become more aware of the moments that they allow somebody to overstep their boundaries and make them uncomfortable. I personally was like that; if I was in [that] moment, [in] kind of similar situations, I would feel like, okay, let’s just like, get out of it … I would smile, and I always give people the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe it’s just for their art project. Maybe it’s just they’re trying something,” you know.
So I would never confront, and I think that allows people to just slowly move forward. And then all of a sudden, you realize that you’re stuck in something very bad. It hasn’t happened to me to that level, but I think I’ve allowed people to push my boundaries.
Even when I was editing it, I tried to kind of show how it progresses. At the beginning, you might not feel [it]. Some people have told me that they know it right away from the beginning, what kind of film they’re in, but a lot of people say, “Oh, halfway through, I couldn’t really be sure that this is where it was going.”
Image Description: A woman stares straight into camera. A faceless man looms over her shoulder.
What elements of “One Thousand and One Nights” do you try to preserve in your retelling? Which elements do you try to subvert or deviate from?
What I focused on mostly was the beginning of this story … A lot of people don’t really know “One Thousand and One Nights” that well. They don’t [even] know how it started. A lot of the stories are well known from it, like “Aladdin,” or a lot of the tales. But Scheherazade has always been a very interesting figure for me, because “One Thousand and One Nights” is such an old story, and such an important story. And Scheherazade is considered one of the first heroines.
When I wanted to revisit that text, I always [questioned] the way the story is told. This woman comes, she tells the king the stories, and by doing that, she saves herself and also other women. But at the same time, she performs to his expectations. She tells him the stories that he likes to hear. You know, we never know in “One Thousand and One Nights,” who is Scheherazade? What are her concerns? Like, we don’t have her stories at all. She’s just a woman who’s telling him stories, and at the end of the story, which is something I kind of find troubling, she marries the king, has kids with him. And in the reading of the text, which is interesting, we say, okay, so the king, by hearing these stories, he changed – but at the same time, he’s a serial killer, you know, at the beginning. So he becomes an okay character, in a way.
So I was thinking that it would be interesting to revisit … those questions… Because as women, we are performing a lot of the time in society for the roles, as mother, wife, daughter, whatever. They have some idea, especially in the Middle East, even more so, you know – especially in Iran – because there is that level of performance.
And a few of the characters kind of talk about it, right? … The 16 year old, she’s like, “From the moment I get up, like I’m performing.” Like I don’t even wear these [clothes] out, what I can wear, you know? So obviously, this is an audition room, right? In an audition room, we are expecting performance. So I thought all of that is very relevant to “One Thousand and One Nights,” [as well as] Scheherazade and how she’s performing. And kind of questioning that: Are we performing to the roles that are expected from us? Are we kind of losing our agency, in a way? So, yeah, I was hoping that the film kind of explores that as well.
How is this film a product of – or a response to – the Woman Life Freedom movement in Iran, or the #MeToo movement in the US?
When the project started for me, [it was] before MeToo. But it also became way more fascinating when MeToo happened. I was like, wow, because I always wanted to make it into a feature film. But then when MeToo happened, I was like, oh, there’s more that I can explore in the same kind of universe of this story.
And I decided to start reading a lot more into the MeToo stories. The women’s sharing of their stories because of “One Thousand and One Nights,” and how Scheherazade is telling stories. And as the interpretation goes, she changes the king, [and] she’s basically breaking the cycle of violence through the storytelling. So I thought that MeToo kind of did that, right?
But I mean, in a way, I think MeToo was a start. I don’t think there’s an end. We haven’t really been able to break the cycle of violence, but the telling of the story has made a change. I think it has had an impact. But we need to do more, you know. So I was hoping that this film touches on that, like builds on MeToo.
And also, like, the reason I made it after Woman Life Freedom was that I thought I could use this universe to bring in the characters that I saw in the streets of Tehran, you know, like the women who were willing to do anything. They were fighting patriarchy and fighting the society, the government that is very different from them. The majority of Iranians do not support our government. Especially [because] Iran is such a young country, we have so many young people [that are] really working hard, especially women.
I think in Iran, what is the most interesting are the women, because they have had so much to lose, you know, so they have … become fighters. [You can] walk on the streets of Tehran these days, just not wearing your hijab every day. And that has happened for the past three years, which nobody [had] thought of before.
It feels like a daily fight against patriarchy, you know. And so I thought, you know, by placing the film and stuff – because the short was made in the US, it was only touching on MeToo – but then by bringing it to Iran, it becomes almost a microcosm of the world that we live in in Iran. Like the women constantly fighting, and…they’re in the position [where] they’re trying to also coexist and, you know, not all the time fight. But at the same time, they realize this is it, we have to fight and get out of it.
I feel like, I think that that’s the part that the film is trying to explore, you know. How can I portray how that is actually starting to happen? When they are realizing, okay, no, this is it. We have to fight. There’s no way out. Like, “I need to actually confront this man,” and they do it at different times. I wanted to have many different characters, just to show how each one of them responds differently. But at the end, they all in a way get to that fighting moment.
Image Description: A woman in a dark room looks over her shoulder.
Through the film’s increasingly intrusive audition tapes, you render the male gaze to be very overt and visible. In your experience, why is it necessary for female directors to portray and expose the male gaze?
Good question… The male gaze, obviously, I thought about a lot, and it was an early decision. The moment I thought of this film, I knew I was going to shoot it from the audition camera point of view, because it had that sense of a male gaze.
I don’t really watch horror films, but I always thought of this film to be somewhat of a psychological horror. And the male gaze for me has been the most horrific moments I’ve had in my life, you know, especially growing up in Iran, because we had the culture of men kind of watching you.
I remember walking down the street as, like a 10 year old, 12, 13. When I came to the U.S., I noticed that it’s not as much… but like in the Middle East, or some of the other [countries] like Italy, I think, men feel entitled – they watch you, up and down. And I remember, just the gaze enough always made me very uncomfortable and scared.
You can really scare somebody by just watching them. And the audition camera, I think, has that a lot. And because traditionally, a lot of the people behind the cameras are men.
… But then I was like, I don’t want to add to something that we have already seen so much. I didn’t want to play the same role as other directors who are okay with having the male gaze. Because it worked so well for this film too. As I show more of it, you get way more uncomfortable and all that. But I thought, I have to just find the middle ground to show it enough … for people to understand, you know, but not go all the way … not to let it become an actual pleasure. You know, I was really, actually worried – that was one of the biggest concerns I had during the making of the film, that the edit especially doesn’t actually become something. We obviously are watching beautiful women, you know, but I didn’t want it to become a pleasurable experience that they’re watching them through.
And that, I think, is a lot of the films that we watch. They play into that, because it sells, in a way. But then the question was, where is the balance? How can I show it and criticize it, but not actually do too much of it?
Image Description: A woman sits in front of a chair, on the floor with her backpack. She holds a veil in her hands.
“1001 Frames” is incredibly disturbing and uncomfortable, but for a purpose. There is a narrative payoff at the end – but more importantly, there’s an emotional catharsis for cast, crew and audience members. What kept you going when making this film? Why was it important to you, and why did it need to be made?
After showing the short film and getting the response – and in that one, I hadn’t even touched the surface, you know – but then I could see how [the short] is impacting people … and I knew there is such a powerful potential, you know, to explore this subject. And when MeToo happened, I kept hearing from women: “oh no, so many women are lying,” or “they’re not reliable, it’s not that important,” or “this whole thing is making men not want to approach us.” We heard it from a lot of men, but from women too, you know? And I was like, okay, if we have all these stories out, and there are still people who are doubting women, or they are not understanding the importance of it, I knew that I could explore it more.
But then, more importantly, I was watching what happened to all the women who came forward; and also with the men who [had] so much evidence against them, and still, legally we couldn’t really do anything. And a lot of them, especially in Iran – like, at least in the US, some of the highest profile cases, there have been some repercussions. But in Iran, a few of … the men actually went around and sued the women. So it was really disturbing to see that. Also, [the] government somewhat became involved, like, kind of threatened the women who were more outspoken.
But it’s still continuing, and it’s very important that we have started to talk about it. But then, despite all of that, especially in Iran, there have been so many women who talked about this man and still, nothing has happened. So I thought [it was] important to put people through that experience, to kind of understand how a woman feels … just the little reactions that they have. And I think for that reason, [it] has become interesting for me when I show it and get the feedback from men too, that it made them think about what they have done.
… Because it’s the norm, I think a lot of the time is to just turn a blind eye, just pretend we haven’t seen it, but because you sometimes have a lot to lose to you know, as a DP, as a man; it’s like it does, it’s not happening to me. But realizing how important it is, I think just doing more, because I feel like we only have scratched the surface with MeToo. We know this problem exists, but we haven’t been able to change anything.
Obviously we went through a hard experience making it, but then at the same time, I feel like it’s very fulfilling. Each time that I show it to the audience, a lot of the time, people come tell me their own personal stories. You know, they open up and they tell me what they went through and how it means debriefing that moment and how they feel like it’s making an impact. So, yeah, just continuing that conversation. Even if it is like a few audience members who watch, and they decide that they’re not gonna do this, or that they would speak up – I think that that would be an achievement for the film.
FEM would like to thank the American Film Institute and Maaa Film for the opportunity to conduct this interview.
