Marjane Satrapi: Iran, art, and young people

“Persepolis is a film that has a twin focus: one being Marjane Satrapi herself, and the horrors as well as wonders she experienced as a child; and the other the evolution of the history of her country, Iran, made accessible to millions of filmgoers around the world.”

This is how the film critic Fabio Ferzetti introduced the filmmaker, cartoonist, painter and screenwriter Marjane Satrapi, winner of the award Le vie dell’Immagine, bestowed on her by the website Cinematografo, Giornate degli Autori, and NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti.

The talk, held in the Sala Laguna on September 3^rd, offered an overview of all the creative milestones in Satrapi’s personal life and career as an artist and then touched on an array of topical social issues. Satrapi takes what one might call a practical approach to her art and life itself: she thinks outside the box but never rejects her roots and the typical popular traditions of her native land.

Starting off with a discussion of Persepolis, the graphic novel – an autobiographical work that later became an animated film – Satrapi recalled not only the instant success of the book, but also her having lived through the Iranian Revolution on her own. Today, she has great faith in the progress made by the European Union and by young people in general: “I grew up in the 1980s, when what counted was going to business school and making a killing in the stock market. I feel safer with the younger generations of today.”

Despite choosing mostly to go it alone as an artist, Satrapi claims that she actually prefers cinema right now, as it allows her the freedom to manage the versatility of her creativity while acknowledging the distinctions between the cartoonist’s art, pursuing imagination alone, and the art of film, its style practically imposed, at times, by images and music.