The Iranian revolution of 1979 led to the overthrow of the Shah's monarchy and the return from exile of Ruhollah Khomeini. The insurrection marked a significant watershed for Iran, one which saw the start of both the Islamic Republic and Khomeini's decade-long stint as premier. As the 1980s dawned, Iran's efforts to install a new political system based on Islamic principles caused fractious relations with other countries, particularly the US, with the Iran hostage crisis—a standoff that actually began before the official commencement of Khomeini's tenure—resulting in real diplomatic strain between the two nations.
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The shadow of the revolution palpably hangs over essay film My Stolen Planet, which tracks the life of its Iranian maker, Farahnaz Sharifi, who was born in 1979. The accident of Sharifi's birth year is largely what drives My Stolen Planet, as she recounts how her experience of pre-revolution Iran is limited to secondhand stories and distressed film reels (more on those later). Through candid footage, we witness the duality of daily life in Tehran, where private freedom is juxtaposed with public oppression. Part diary, part political commentary, My Stolen Planet is very much about memory, both individual and collective.
Sharifi's tale is one of curiosity and discovery as she navigates the intricacies of her identity in a society where questions are, in the main, neither welcomed nor valued. She obsessively collects strangers' 8mm home movies—featuring birthday parties and so on—in the process assembling a collage of yesteryear that conveys an image of a quite different Iran. Poignant excerpts from these films form the emotional core of My Stolen Planet, and the end credits include an appeal to help identify those featured; Sharifi laments how so many treasured recordings ended up discarded by owners fearful of the post-revolution government.
Yet it is these old films that allow the director to form a connection to the past, and she uses them to fill in the blanks of her own life, finding a commonality between herself and these ghosts. My Stolen Planet may be steeped in a Resnaisian obsession with the Before Times, but it still has room for more recent events—such as Sharifi's mother's fight against Alzheimer's disease, and the civil unrest that followed the 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini, both of which, in very different ways, underline the great importance of remembering. Amini's death inspired the title track of Waddinxveen band Within Temptation's Bleed Out, a song which, like Sharifi's film, is a quite unique meditation on identity, freedom and memory.
