Hear My Silence (working title)
We are raising money for a film to generate large social impact. In detail, we are producing a film about forced marriage of underage girls. Set in Iran, the film will actually be shot in Eastern Turkey no later than October/November 2019 with a crew from Iran and London. Any amount of donation will be appreciated and ANYONE who donates will receive a credit in the film.
It is a step forward that women in film, business and politics have taken to the microphone and are having their
voices heard. Yet for the millions of women who live without any access to power or wealth, they just have silence. Silence in their suffering. Silence in their shame. Hear My Silence (working title) gives voice to these women who are the most vulnerable and abused girls in the Middle East – namely those forced into marriage at an early age. Disguised by a legal, religious and social order that claims to represent conservative virtues, the reality is institutionalised child rape on a mass scale.
In Iran alone, official numbers suggest there are currently over 40,000 girls below the age of 15 that get married every year. While the national law sets the marriage age at 13, girls as young as 9 are permitted to marry if their fathers give consent. In some rural villages, it is the norm not the exception that girls this young are married off. The groom is almost always an adult well into their 20s or 30s, and sometimes much older. Neither the girls (nor their mothers) can object to marriage if suitor and father agree and thus a legally and culturally acceptable form of abuse and discrimination has become widespread.
The true story of Hear My Silence uses the power of film to shine a light on this sad reality. Many of these women lacked the concepts to understand what they had endured, but they felt the pain. For the first time, the microphone is passed to these victims who can finally find a channel to express their experience, shout about their injustice and call attention to their plight. While the film is focused on Iran, it hopes to spark a global debate on the forgotten girls and women in the age of gender equality.
The film is set in Iran, but child marriages are common across the Middle East, South Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America and even in the UK and US.
Global Statistics for Child Marriage:
Approximately 12 million girls are married each year before they reach the age of 18, according to UNICEF data from 2018. Many of these girls are as young as 9 and 10 years old.
All donations are appreciated on https://www.gofundme.com/film-hear-my-silence
About the Director:
Mahdieh Zardiny considers her duty as a filmmaker to shed light on stories untold or ignored. Born in Iran, Zardiny moved to London to continue her studies in Film and Media at Royal Holloway University with a specialty in documentary filmmaking. In 2010, Zardiny’s film was selected for Best Short at Royal Holloway. And again in 2012, she won awards for her first short documentary, Unknown Destination, which was screened at Cannes Corner Film Festival. She then worked as a documentary researcher for Channel 4 as she begun research for her first feature documentary. Following five years of research, interviews and filming, in 2018 Zardiny completed her feature documentary about Abdol Hossein Sardari, the Iranian Consul in France during the 1940s occupation by the Nazis. Previously untold, the film Sardari’s Enigma recounts how Sardari saved the lives of nearly 300 Iranian and non-Iranian Jews during the war by forging Iranian passports and crafting false documents to facilitate their escape. Sardaris Enigma is currently entering the festival circuit and preparing for wider release in 2019.
Here is a link to the trailer for Sardari’s Engima:
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