You Never Know

The fear that came with the threat of COVID-19 wasn’t just about the disease itself. The pandemic separated people for so long that it felt endless. As we struggled to keep our small artistic circle alive amid both suffocating repression and the political plague surrounding us, suddenly, all ties were severed. At best, we became virtual beings, shadows of ourselves. The simple, everyday human connections—where true artistic expression is born—were cut off. It was as if everything conspired to deepen the silence of death over this land.

In 2020, during one of our online conversations with playwright, Mohsen Yalfani, speaking from Paris, he mentioned his monologue The Girl with the Red Ribbon. In this piece, he had captured the perspective of one of the victims of the 1980s mass executions of political dissidents in Iran, weaving an intensely personal narrative of that era. He emailed me the script.
His deeply human approach was astonishing. Each line conjured vivid images in my mind. Almost instinctively, I imagined Shirin in the role of the young girl. I knew exactly how it had to be performed. Even the editing of visuals and text fell into place naturally.
This was it. This was our escape from the prison of COVID-19.
Shirin embraced the idea immediately. I suggested she rehearse the text directly with Yalfani himself. From that moment on, life stirred back into our days. Every online session with the playwright, every week of intense practice, became the highlight of our existence.
Four months passed in the blink of an eye. Our cinematographer was ready. We had exactly two hours to record the performance while adhering to strict health protocols. In those two hours, three cameras captured every detail of Shirin’s performance.
In November 2020, The Girl with the Red Ribbon was released in memory of all the political prisoners massacred in the summer of 1988 in Iran.
Neither of us escaped COVID-19. The virus took hold, and we battled its effects for months. But it never managed to imprison us.
Even now, on certain days, I hear Shirin whispering lines from the play:
"I told her not to think about the clouds—think about what’s behind them. Think about a sky filled with stars. About those nights when the light crashes down so fiercely, it feels like the heavens are collapsing over your head. Think about Suha, that star you once told me about—the one near the tail of Ursa Major, second to last… so close to its end."