Documentary film
With
A film by
Producer
Berlinstan
Germany 2024
With
Parastou Fruohar
A film by
DOP
M.R. Jahanpanah
M.R. Jahanpanah
Producer
Berlinstan
Germany 2024
“Yaghoot, The Woman in the Red Dress" is a film about love and waiting, political resistance, self-determination.
The film tells the fairy tale story of Yaghoot, a homeless woman in a red dress, who waited in vain for her lover in Tehran's famous Ferdosi Square for 30 years, both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, until her death. It is a story of unrequited love and unfulfilled desire. The destitute and homeless woman, who chose a life of waiting in public, became an urban myth, a symbol of an idiosyncratic female lifestyle, of love and passive resistance.
The stories about "the woman in the red dress" are part of a collective memory in turbulent times: always dressed in bright red, Yaghoot is still present in the minds of Iranians at home and abroad. Her story, and memories of her, have been carried all over the world by the over four million Iranians who left Iran since 1979. Grandmothers tell their stories to their grandchildren. Poets have written poems about such stories, and songwriters songs.
Her figure provides a projection surface for women of different social and ethnic backgrounds, political or religious orientation. Many seem to be able to understand the sad fate of waiting as a basic motif of life and find it hope-giving. The myth of the woman can also be seen here as an aspect of the spiritual ideas that are deeply rooted in Iranian society.
"The Woman in the Red Dress" is the story of a woman who chose to wait in the shadow of the great stone monument of the poet Ferdosi, giving people hope for love and freedom.
The film tells the fairy tale story of Yaghoot, a homeless woman in a red dress, who waited in vain for her lover in Tehran's famous Ferdosi Square for 30 years, both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, until her death. It is a story of unrequited love and unfulfilled desire. The destitute and homeless woman, who chose a life of waiting in public, became an urban myth, a symbol of an idiosyncratic female lifestyle, of love and passive resistance.
The stories about "the woman in the red dress" are part of a collective memory in turbulent times: always dressed in bright red, Yaghoot is still present in the minds of Iranians at home and abroad. Her story, and memories of her, have been carried all over the world by the over four million Iranians who left Iran since 1979. Grandmothers tell their stories to their grandchildren. Poets have written poems about such stories, and songwriters songs.
Her figure provides a projection surface for women of different social and ethnic backgrounds, political or religious orientation. Many seem to be able to understand the sad fate of waiting as a basic motif of life and find it hope-giving. The myth of the woman can also be seen here as an aspect of the spiritual ideas that are deeply rooted in Iranian society.
"The Woman in the Red Dress" is the story of a woman who chose to wait in the shadow of the great stone monument of the poet Ferdosi, giving people hope for love and freedom.