Shirin Neshat and Umm Kulthum: Female Artist, Family, and Exile

Shirin Neshat's latest film "Looking for Umm Kulthum" has taken her on various festival journeys in this year we are nearing the end of. This includes her participation in the "Close Encounters" session at the Rome Film Festival, where the Iranian artist residing in the U.S. spoke about her world and the intricacies of the Umm Kulthum film to the Italian audience. Neshat, who has lived in the U.S. for decades, is a prolific artist who gained global fame through her photographs and video art. She was praised for her first feature film, "Women Without Men," based on a story by Shahrnush Parsipur, winning the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival in 2009; a visually stunning film that showcased the precision and meticulousness of a photographer. Her second film, "Looking for Umm Kulthum," about the famous Arab singer, was released several years later and, in terms of atmosphere and narrative, differed from her first work, becoming more of a personal film about the filmmaker's challenges in making a film about Umm Kulthum. Neshat said at the Rome Festival, "Let me tell you a secret: When I started making this film, I thought I was making a film about a hero, about an icon. Then I realized that she is an icon I cannot penetrate. She was an artist who shared her emotions with her audience, and many cried with her. This film showcases my challenge with myself to understand this artist. It is about the impossibility of making a complete film about an artist." The film features actors of various nationalities and collaborators from different countries, making it a relatively high-budget project. Neshat stated, "When I started my work as an artist, I appeared in front of a photographer's camera and asked him to take my picture. My work began with collaboration with others. That’s why I am very comfortable with teamwork. When I work with those who have experience in music, photography, or dance design, I learn from them, and they help me a lot. It rarely happens that I work alone, only when I am writing or photographing. I only know how to work with a team. In the Umm Kulthum film, I directed a film in Arabic while I do not speak Arabic and collaborated with actors from Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Iran, Germany, France, and Italy. For me, working with people from different countries is like air for breathing, and I don’t know how else to work." Neshat says about Umm Kulthum: "I think Umm Kulthum is a symbol of the Arab world and the Middle East today, which is politically very fragmented with Shia and Sunni, Jewish and Christian identities. The only thing that the entire Middle East agrees upon is the love for Umm Kulthum; this is amazing for a female artist to become a symbol of unity. I wanted to tell the Western audience that we have a rich and global society in the Middle East, and a woman has been a pioneer of our culture." However, the female artist and the concept of family have also become one of the main aspects of the film's story: "I think part of the film's material is universal, regarding how a female artist can create a balance in the limbo of traditional expectations like having a family and children while dedicating herself to art. I think this is a global issue that has persisted to this day. This film is about a small Iranian artist looking up to a successful Egyptian icon and trying to learn." Neshat considers herself a blend of Western and Eastern artist: "The best way I can explain my way of thinking and working is that I am somehow on the edge of East and West; I have studied in the West in the field of art history and know about Western classical art, but my heart is in the Middle East, and my feelings and structure are Islamic-Iranian, and who I am now is a combination of that. I always think of different audiences, and it is impossible for me to create a work that is completely Iranian or completely Western. It is natural for me to create a Western work with Natalie Portman and then go to Egypt to make a film about Umm Kulthum. This has become my way of life as an artist in exile.