For the past two decades, filmmaker Massoud Bakhshi (“Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness”) has captured his two nieces growing up on camera. As the years pile up, the little girls go from excitedly unwrapping custom Barbie dolls and running carefree amongst playground bars to being weighed down — then beautifully set free — by a growing political consciousness. The result of the years of footage is Bakshi’s “All My Sisters,” premiering in competition at IDFA.
On top of being a deeply personal family story and a wider political tale tied to the historical “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in Iran in 2022, “All My Sisters” is a searing look into the ethics of documentary. The film begins with the director readying his two nieces to watch the material he captured of them. Only what they approve would make the final cut. In this sense, the film is at once a document and an experimentation, prodding at the complex conversation surrounding privacy and young people at a time when smartphone cameras are turned on 24/7.
Speaking with Variety out of the Dutch festival, Bakhshi says he had the idea for the film from the moment he first started filming. Originally, the filmmaker only meant to film the two sisters for seven years, until they began public school, but he continued to film as “I found their lives more interesting then.”
Despite shooting for 18 years, the director was cautious with how much he captured. Having learned how to be a filmmaker before the popularization of digital cameras, Bakhshi says he decided to “work the same” way, being conservative of quantity. “I had several shooting sessions per year and a general script I had to adapt each time according to occasions like birthdays, start of school, New Year’s feasts, and I had to be flexible.”
When it comes to editing, Bakhshi did several pre-edits to “have an idea” of where he was going with the film and also for evaluating and possibly changing the script as he went. “The final editing was done during 10 weeks, over the period of two years.”
“All My Sisters,” courtesy of IDFA
Asked about the format of the film and how it touches upon ethics in documentary filmmaking, the director says that, “from the moment [the sisters] entered adolescence, I understood I needed their approvals to finish the film and that this approval should be part of the structure of the film.” “I thought the best way was to show them the edited material, to share their own lives with them while also filming their reactions. It was a discovery, and a shock at the same time, for them to see all these years in such a short time. I wanted to capture and integrate [this feeling] of discovery into the film.”
The director extended these conversations to the rest of the family, like his mother and sister. Although their faces are not shown in the documentary, the two are prominent in the daily lives of the two girls. “Their consent was my main moral concern,” he says. “This whole process was extremely challenging for me because [in Iran] the culture is all about hiding, covering, and not revealing, exposing, or showing anything directly. But this is exactly what cinema is about: to search, to ask, to show. The idea of the mirror is very important and basic in this film.”
These challenges, of course, brought reservations to the director, who says these questionings are still present and are “personal, familial and ethical, but also sociocultural.” “Nearly every day of editing, I was thinking about leaving the film unfinished. Mainly for the sake of the characters and their future life, and the possible impact the film would have on them. I am grateful to them because once I showed them the film, they helped me to overcome these hesitations. But I am responsible for this film and am aware of that.”
Has the process of making “All My Sisters” affected Bakhshi’s relationship with his nieces? Well, it has certainly helped the director “get to know this generation.” “I could feel and breathe a slow but constant change led by this generation during all these years [of shooting]. I admire them, I learn from them, I love and respect them, even if they are very different from me.”
“All My Sisters” is produced by Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu and Bady Minck for Amour Fou Vienna in co-production with Eric Lagesse for Sampek Productions, Mohammad Farokhmanesh for Brave New Work Film Productions and Massoud Bakhshi for Bon Gah. Pyramide International handles sales.
