In the Shadow of the Cypress | Q&A with Hossein Molayemi & Shirin Sohani
© Barfak Studio
In the Shadow of the Cypress has ridden a challenging road to being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Made in Iran out of the pockets of directors Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani, the duo found themselves having to deal with the limitations of their budget alongside a lack of governmental support, sanctions imposed on the country and the devaluation of the Iranian currency. Despite these challenges, In the Shadow of the Cypress is a beautiful film that uses gorgeous, geometric 2D animation to chronicle the relationship between a father and daughter as the former suffers from PTSD.
Skwigly caught up with Molayemi and Sohani to discuss the long process of making the film, narrowing it down to a topic they felt passionate about, and developing the visuals.
How did you develop the idea for the short?
Shirin Sohani: We’ve been working together for 10 years. The first time we worked together, I was in charge of the background design and some other stuff in Hossein’s film, and we found that we work well together and that our cinematic tastes are very aligned and we were both interested in stories about family drama. So we decided to make an animated short together about a parent and a child. At first it was a father and his son and the subject was about migration. It was completely different.
When we were developing the story more, we changed the location to the Persian Gulf, south of Iran, and this had a lot of impact because there are a lot of things to show, like the shape of the waves, seagulls, and the ocean of the Persian Gulf. They had a lot of impact on this story. This changed the story a lot but we still didn’t intend to tell a story about war veterans, but the more we looked at it, it was obvious that the father character was suffering from PTSD. We went to a hospital which specialized in PTSD in veterans which was very poignant and hard. We heard some noises and realised it was someone hitting their head on the wall or on the ground. It was hard to hear that. We use that in our film when the father hits his head onto the mirror. Also, Hussein has always had a complicated relationship with his father. All these things were sources of inspiration for the story of the film.
Was it difficult to express those complicated ideas without dialogue?
Hossein Molayemi: Silent animated films are very prone to seeming artificial and unconvincing to the audience, because it’s hard to believe that, for example, two people are sitting besides each other in a room and don’t, don’t speak to each other for 20 minutes. It was very hard to structure the film so it would seem believable. But it was very important for us to make a film without any words because we wanted it to be more penetrable and effective for the international audience. Also we think that wordless films are closer to the true nature of cinema and pure art.
SS: Facial expressions are very vital in our film. There are moments where you don’t see a lot of movement, just the emotions, very delicate emotions in their faces. We were so strict to our animators to perfectly animate those emotions with characters who have just two dots for their eyes. It’s very hard to express the emotions with that design. At the same time, it was a very good choice for our film to decrease the cost of production.
In wordless films, music becomes a big factor. How did you develop the sound of the film?
HM: At first we didn’t know a composer we could rely on and trust easily, but Afshin Azizi is a genius. It was his first time writing music for an animated film but he was able to deliver under extraordinary circumstances where we were in a big hurry. We wanted the music to be minimal just like everything else in the film and Afshin did that very well. Nowadays, a lot of animated films use music from the beginning to the end, non stop. He didn’t want this. He wanted to be very picky about how much music was used.
SS: I remember we prepared a piece of music to show Afshin, which we loved and he said “Wow, I’m not Hans Zimmer, what do you want from me!” At first what he made was quite far from what we wanted. Little by little we trusted him more and gave him freedom to create music that ended up being better for the film.
© Barfak Studio
The colour of the film is so vibrant. Could you talk about developing that look?
SS: You find a lot of sorrow in the film, but the color palettes are bright and full of hope. Maybe it’s unconscious, but it shows that we found hope and love in the film, despite the sadness in it. And also, it’s scorching hot next to the Persian Gulf so you can’t choose another palette, you have to show the heat.
The characters have a thin and wispy look to them. How did you arrive at that design?
HM: We had to simplify the characters for our animators in order to reduce expenses, that’s why we used geometrical shapes in our character design. But that doesn’t mean that we wanted to reduce the appeal and the attraction of the characters. Some people, including Pete Docter, told us that they felt a kinship between our character styles and Cartoon Saloon’s films, but it was unconscious and unintentional.
What Iranian films do you suggest people see?
SS: There are a lot of films I’d love to suggest but they aren’t available internationally. For example, we had a golden age of Iranian animation in the 70s with directors who were engaging in making short animated films in Iran, and their films would be screened in Annecy and Venice and Zagreb. They were so avant garde for animation at that time. But this year in the Oscars there is an Iranian film in the category of International Feature called The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof, who is our friend. I think that he put himself in danger to make that film, but it shows what happened in Iran during the protest two years ago.
HM: Last year, Yegane Moghaddam’s Our Uniform got an Oscar nomination in the short category which was the first nomination of an Iranian animation at the Oscars. She’s a very good filmmaker, and there are a lot of other good filmmakers in Iran, but their works are not available.
The 97th Academy Awards take place on March 2nd 2025 at 7pm ET/4pm ET (March 3rd at 12 am GMT)