Bibi
Hassan Yektapanah, the Multiple Award Winning Director brings us Bibi, a day in the life of one old woman in Iran.
As the daughter of an Iranian father and an Iraqi mother, Bibiaziz Zahiri has been expelled from Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s regime. While the rest of her family remain in what had become her home country, Iraq, without ID from either country, Bibi now finds herself desperate and alone in Iran.
Her only hope in life now is that her daughter will one day be able to mourn at her grave. However, without official ID she will be buried in an unmarked grave. And so begins her quest for identification so that she can die in peace.
The lonely official at the ID Registration Office, Mr. Kazemi, claims not to be able find any record of Bibi’s existence but insinuates that she can get an ID card easily by becoming his wife.
Unwilling to take this offer, her one and only friend, local taxi driver 22 year old Mr. Foruhar, tries to help her obtain illegal documentation. When he is arrested Bibi, pushed to the limits of despair, calls Mr Kazemi…
The sound of Bibi’s alarm clock ringing regularly punctures the film, reminding us of the journey of time, and reminding her that she is still alive. The only thing Bibi lives for now is death.
Yektapanah’s Bibi is a powerful portrayal of an individual trapped between two regimes which are too busy fighting for their own survival to remember the people who need protecting most.
Directors Note
Bibi is looking for her identity. We do not actually know who she is or who her family and relatives are. Bibi is trying to prove herself; in fact she is searching to find her own self , she is not only looking for her ID document. Yet she wants to make sure that after her death her name would be written on her gravestone, therefore she wants to prove herself… her right to Be… her right to Identity… she does not care whether on her ID her nationality would be Iraqi or Iranian… she is searching for herself… this is her natural right and if she loses it, she will be indeed a walking dead like the final scene of the film where she covers herself like dead while breathing.