Desert Dancer (Richard Raymond, 2014): USA

Reviewed by Nadia Zetterberg. Viewed at the Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2015.

This film is about a young Iranian man named Afshin Ghaffarian who has a passion for art, and dancing in particular. The only problem is that dancing is strictly forbidden and even illegal in the country of Iran. Afshin decides to start a dancing crew with his friends from his University. Together they practice dancing in secret in a basement where they can not be seen by the civilian police officers that constantly fill up the streets of Iran to keep an eye out on everyone, controlling everything with violence. The themes of this film are passion, love, freedom and fighting for what you believe in and your right to do what ever makes you happy. The film involves a lot of political values and viewpoints and also deals with human rights. I consider it a wake up call to the rest of the world. It is showing us only a small part of what is going on in Iran, but it is enough to show us how horrible people there are being treated and how corrupt their government and society is. This is a very important film that managed to move me in so many ways. It is truly awful to think about the fact that now, in 2015, people still do not have human rights, and that something so beautiful and innocent as art is forbidden and illegal while a government is allowed to beat their people till death without any consequences. The film had such a deep impact on me that I considered becoming an activist for a while! Movies like this one should not have to exist because people should not have to live lives like Afshin had to. But somehow I am glad this movie happened, I absolutely loved it.