If one of the pillars of filmmaking advice is the oft-repeated mantra of ‘show don’t tell’ then it’s safe to say that the Barfak Studio produced animated short In the Shadow of the Cypress (Dar Saaye Sarv) from creative partners Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi is a master class in that not heeded enough guidance. A film that speaks volumes across all the facets of its minimalist parts, In the Shadow of the Cypress tells the story of an at her wit’s end daughter and her PTSD suffering father living an isolated life on the coast who, as their relationship reaches breaking point, are forced into a new dynamic by an unforeseen event. A Venice world premiering film which went on to win prizes at Tribeca, Animayo and LA Shorts, it’s easy to see why this haunting story of a difficult father, trauma, compassion and sacrifice is one of five in the running for the 2025 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, alongside Yuck!, Beautiful Men, Magic Candies and Wander to Wonder. Joining us from Iran for an exhaustive look into the six and a half year painstaking journey to complete the film, we speak to Sohani and Molayemi about going dialogue-free with a narrative intent often missing from animations that do the same, the very personal underpinnings of this father daughter story and their daily battle to keep the production moving forward against the headwinds of life in Iran.
[The following interview is also available to watch at the end of this article.]
As most of our audience wouldn’t have had a chance to see In the Shadow of the Cypress yet, could you tell us what it’s about and how you came to be working on this film?
Shirin Sohani: Hossein and I already had a good collaboration on his previous film, Run Rostam Run, and at that time we found out that our cinematic tastes are similar to each other. Then we decided to direct an animated short together and we chose a genre that we were both interested in, which was family drama. At the beginning, we didn’t know exactly what to say and it was just going to be a family story about the challenge between a parent and their child. There were some concerns, like immigration, which was one of the sources of inspiration for this film. But other than that, our experiences in our personal life, such as the relationship Hossein has always had with his father, which is quite complicated, and also my father, who was a war veteran from the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s and was injured in that war. Also, the life of Iranian PTSD veterans living in Iran, we had a lot of research about their lives in Iran. The location of the film, which is next to the Persian Gulf in the south of Iran, had its own impact because some elements like the whale, the ship, and the ocean when they entered the film changed the story a lot.
By keeping it minimal we thought it would be more feasible for us to keep the concentration of the audience on the drama itself.
Wasn’t the location initially conceived as a landlocked western province before you moved it to its current coastal setting?
Hossein Molayemi: Yes, actually before going to the Persian Gulf, we thought of different locations in Iran and all of them were landlocked. The decision to have the location near the Persian Gulf was a wise decision because it introduced new dramatic potentials and elements into the film. But you are right, before that, we were thinking of a location within the territory of Iran, but all of them were landlocked.
Did the film always centre on a trio of protagonists or when it was landlocked were there more characters involved in those early forms of the film?
HM: In the initial stages there were more characters but gradually we came to the conclusion that it was better to keep it minimal, not only by reducing the number of people but also in the visual elements and even in the music. By keeping it minimal we thought it would be more feasible for us to keep the concentration of the audience on the drama itself and prevent them from being distracted by excessive visual elements.
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I wanted to ask about deciding to go dialogue-free. I read that one of the reasons was to not have the audience distracted by subtitles. Was there a version of this film where you had tried with dialogue and then jettisoned that or did you make that decision from the beginning?
SS: At the beginning we knew we were going to make an animated film without any dialogue because in the previous film that Hossein directed, there was a lot of dialogue and we thought that was a negative point because a lot of people couldn’t follow the story while reading the subtitles. So we decided that in this film we were not going to do that. Besides, we think it’s more creative to tell a story without any words, you have to put in a lot of effort and it shows our ability. Also, the nature of the relationship in this film required that silence, it’s not something abnormal. In some animated films, you see the characters are not speaking at all but you ask yourself why? Why are they silent, this is something bizarre! But in this film, we think it’s completely natural that they don’t speak to each other.
We’ve spoken a lot about the minimalism of the film and the fact that it’s dialogue-free, however, I want to point out to readers that this is one of the most complex emotional animations that I’ve seen in terms of the themes it’s dealing with and the multiple layers it works on. How did you condense such a rich story into a runtime you were happy with?
HM: In order to design and structure everything properly we thought we had to give it time. That’s why making this film took us more than six and a half years. We had to give it enough time to make it ripe. Making a film is like brewing tea or herbal infusion; it needs enough time to mature. We had to check it over and over again to remove every unnecessary part of the film.
We think it’s more creative to tell a story without any words, you have to put in a lot of effort and it shows our ability.
SS: At the beginning, we didn’t think about the duration of the film; we were just concentrating on the story. Then we found out it would need maybe 30 minutes to be told so then the two of us had a lot of sessions to tell the story in a shorter time – it was just like a puzzle. It took us a long time to manage the story.
Although this is a co-produced, co-directed project, the credits attribute specific areas to each of you, like one of you took on the backgrounds and the other took on more of the character design. How did you split the roles?
SS: What you see in the title credits is that Hossein was in charge of character designing and I was in charge of background design but in fact, we did all these tasks together. We had a lot of sessions to decide every single thing in this film. It’s like a hand-woven carpet and we did it knit by knit. There is nothing that was done completely individually; it’s the combination of Hossein and me together. Generally, regarding the animation part and layout design, Hossein was more engaged in that and I was engaged in the background design more than Hossein.
I know that you had issues finding talent, mainly working with just the two of you but there was a third person, one of your animators, who was there from the beginning all the way through.
HM: You’re talking about one of our best animators. We didn’t have even one full-time animator all of them were part-time. Azad Maroufi is one of our animators who did maybe more than 65% of the animation of the film alone. He’s a genius! He was my student at the university and he started his career with us. The majority of the workload in this film was done by just three or at most four people despite what you see in the credits. The majority of them joined us in the last year. Azad was one of our team members who allocated the most time to this film and we owe him a lot for being able to make this film.
As well as those challenges, I know you were hit with COVID, which made things go remote, and Hossein, unfortunately, you had some health issues as well. How were you able to adapt to those major hurdles to keep things moving and continue working on the film?
HM: As you mentioned, we had to deal with a lot of problems like sanctions, economic crisis, health issues, devaluation of our currency, lack of skilled animators, and so on. In this situation, we always said that making our film was like a guerrilla war. We could not fight like a conventional war. It was like playing chess, every day we had to solve many problems. We had to rely on people who were not professionals but were very talented to overcome some obstacles. Our trust in many of them was paid off. When you are under pressure an instinct of emergency awakens in you and you try to find a creative solution to solve the problems.
We always said that making our film was like a guerrilla war. We could not fight like a conventional war. It was like playing chess, every day we had to solve many problems.
However we try, we can not fully imply what happened to us during the making of this film! We had to overcome severe economic problems, political obsessions and even didn’t have access to the free internet, we had to use VPNs to be in touch with each other, especially during the COVID era. We had to work under this mental pressure every day. We didn’t receive any governmental financial support, nobody came to assist us. The average income in Iran because of the sanctions has decreased to about $200 a month and without any financial support, we had to make this film with money from our own pocket. We fought tooth and nail to make this film actually, without any exaggeration.
SS: That’s why we took on a lot of roles ourselves, Hossein, me and Azad in order to decrease the cost of the film.
Traditionally, the story comes first and then people think about the visual elements but with this, the visual elements informed the story as much as the story informed the visual elements.
HM: Because we knew from the beginning that the story development phase would last very long, we couldn’t postpone the visual development phase until after we reached the proper story. That’s why we decided to work on them simultaneously. I think it was a blessing in disguise, and both phases could lend to each other some new elements. For example, the elements of the sea and the ship first came into existence in the visual development and after that, we introduced them to the story, or vice versa. I think it was a wise decision to do them simultaneously.
SS: I remember that at the beginning as I mentioned the story was about immigration, then when we changed the location, the way we entered the film and the story changed completely. And yes, it was a blessing in disguise that we put a lot of time into the story but didn’t wait until that was complete to start designing the visual concepts of the film. They really helped each other.
While In the Shadow of the Cypress is a more realistic, grounded story dealing with complex issues, it still utilises enchanting visual flourishes such as when the father turns into petals to express the inner emotions of your characters.
SS: Our profession is animation not live action and when you have this opportunity to make animated films, you have access to a lot of elements. For example, you cannot use petals or melt your character in a live action film. So, it’s a very good idea to use this opportunity in your film. For example, we could have shown the inner feelings of the daughter in another way but it’s more creative to show her melting. Or maybe that’s a thought running in the father’s mind – he feels that his daughter is going to die but it’s more creative to show it in that way. Some of these decisions came to our mind unconsciously. It’s a bit difficult to explain how we chose these elements or even the blue colour for the father.
Our profession is animation not live action and when you have this opportunity to make animated films, you have access to a lot of elements.
HM: We wanted to show the viewer the inner state of the father with a visual element and we decided to use a certain colour. Among all the colours we came to the conclusion that blue was the most appropriate one because for example, if we used red it would imply anger, or if we used green it would show the father being sick. But the only colour that we could find which would imply the inner mental state of the father was blue. Also, blue is a sign of mental issues in some cases and that’s why we chose this colour.
What informed your decision to deploy a non-linear structure for the story? I also read that when it came to the edit you did some work rearranging the scenes.
HM: We structured and arranged all the scenes from the beginning so very few scenes were changed in the editing process. As I told you, it was because of the time we allocated at the initial stages. We enjoyed a very good pre-production and because we didn’t have extra money and extra resources to waste the majority of things were structured and arranged from the beginning. But regarding the non-linear narrative in the film, because we had to flashback to the father’s past we wanted to disclose that little by little during the film. We didn’t have any other choice; we had to go backwards and forwards from the past to the current time. It was not a choice it was an obligation. We didn’t want to disclose everything from the father’s past at the beginning we wanted to disclose it gradually during the film. We wanted the audience to have a certain judgment about the father and gradually change that judgment.
You both said that your personal lives informed the story; Hossein your difficult relationship with your father and Shirin your father’s problems as a war veteran. But what comes across in this film is the level of compassion, caring, and forgiveness for that father character. It’s full of warmth, love, and understanding, even given the difficult elements it grew from. Is that something that the six and a half years of creating In the Shadow of the Cypress brought to the understanding of your respective fathers and the relationships you have with them?
HM: As for myself, I think working on this film gave me the opportunity to put myself in my father’s shoes and watch the universe from his point of view. I finally managed to forgive him after maybe more than 30 years. I think neither Shirin nor I are the same people from eight years ago when we wanted to start making this film. I don’t know if Shirin wants to add anything.
SS: I just want to say that I’ve always felt sad for my father because he has shrapnel in his skull left from the war due to an explosion. If he doesn’t take his medicine, he sometimes behaves a bit strangely and violently. He lost one of his eyes during the war and at that time he was attending a pilot course because his dream was to be a pilot in the future. The health of the eyes is crucial for that and he lost one of them so I’ve always had this feeling for my father because he lost his dream. I didn’t want to make a film for him and dedicate a film to him, but unconsciously, when you have some concerns they will enter your film without you intending it. I’m happy for that.
Besides that, there are a lot of PTSD veterans in Iran. Many of them were killed in the war but now we have a lot of veterans still living in Iran. PTSD has a lot of levels – some of them can still live with their families but some of them cannot and should be in the hospital all the time. In the past, they went to war hoping for a bright future and now they are in the hospital knowing what is going on outside, what is going on in this country after the revolution after many years and they lost their dreams.
I think working on this film gave me the opportunity to put myself in my father’s shoes and watch the universe from his point of view.
HM: There is a very vast gap and contradiction in what the veterans who went to the war with Iraq to defend our country expected it to be and what you can see now because of our government and the dictatorship which is in our country. It is very intolerable for them that they sacrificed their lives and their health for the situation that is going on currently. This made us sad and we wanted to give them a voice. Give them a voice that despite the fact their sacrifices were not paid off because of our government and our regime, there are some people who care about them and can put the spotlight on them.
Which leads into the recognition that the film has rightly received – from premiering at Venice, winning multiple awards at festivals and now there’s the Oscar nomination. Especially given the subject matter what does that mean to you both as filmmakers?
HM: It is like a dream come true because it is the second nomination for Iranian animation [following in the footsteps of Yegane Moghaddam’s Our Uniform]. If we make it to receive an Oscar it will be the first Oscar for Iranian animation. We want to dedicate this nomination and potential winning of an Oscar to our tired nation, who are suffering from the dictatorship in our country. We have received a lot of compliments from film festivals and prominent individuals in the industry like John Musker, Tomm Moore, Pete Docter, Joanna Quinn and others. This makes us glad that after years of working on this film, our efforts and dedicated work have paid off.
Just before we let you go if it’s not too early to ask, what are your future plans as filmmakers?
SS: Hossein and I have always wanted to make a feature animated film. In the field of short films, you can make experimental films and maybe the audience is not as important in comparison with feature animated films but the audience has always been so important to us. We would love to make another short animated film, we have a lot of ideas and maybe it will be completely different from this one. We’d love to experience another world, another kind of filmmaking in short films. But at the same time, we are really into making our first feature animated film. There is a specific idea and the Oscar nomination has really paved our way. I hope we can make it.
